


For Want Of

by Camorra



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-02-02 16:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 48,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12730080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camorra/pseuds/Camorra
Summary: For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost.Orihara Izaya and Heiwajima Shizuo meet in middle school, becoming better and worse for it.





	1. Chapter 1

He wonders, briefly, no real time to consider, what it would be like to have a loving, doting mother. 

Maybe she’d celebrate his first day of school with pancakes, waking him up when they were fluffy and warm. Kururi would be balanced on her hip, and she’d turn and smile at him as he came down the stairs, still ruffled from sleep and brushing it from his eyes. 

It’s funny, he can’t even imagine Kyouko’s face on her. 

Instead, Kururi (or maybe it’s Mairu? Who cares, they’re twins, pretty much the same anyway) contents herself with chewing on his sock as he pours himself a bowl of cereal. 

He’s honestly kind of surprised his parents found time to fuck in between jet setting from here to there, but he guesses it doesn’t take that long, does it? Maybe they were efficient about it as they are everything else.

“Looking forward to your first day of school?” he asks whichever sibling is chewing on his sock. 

“Hm,” she says in response. Close enough. Do three year olds talk more? He may have fudged their birth certificates only a teeny bit, what’s a year in the grand scheme of thing, but what else was he supposed to do with them while he was in school? They’re mobile now with a near suicidal surge to stick their fingers into just about any electrical socket they can reach. 

“Where’s your sister?” 

Kururi/Mairu (Kurmai? Easier to say, certainly) looks shifty, but glances to the left before her eyes return solidly to his face. Izaya follows her eyes to see the other one nearly in aim of her goal, baby fingers stretched out towards the damnable electrical socket. 

For a second, a long second, a part of him (okay, a majority) wants to wait and see what happens. Let her achieve her goal and stick her fingers into the socket and achieve her victory, however short lived it (and she) might be. 

But he doesn’t, because he is a responsible older brother. Or something. Fuck it, he’s invested far too much time into these idiots for one of them to die now. (But how long would it take for Kyouko to notice? Maybe he could convince her there was only one to start with? Better yet, pretend one is two? Nah, would never work. Too much that could go wrong.)

He scoops the one closes to him up tucks the other under his arm. It might make maneuvering his backpack on difficult and force him to leave the slowly warming cereal on the counter, but he’s running late anyway, and breakfast is kind of excessive anyway. 

It’s easier than he thought it would be to ditch his sisters at their nursery school, the teacher (as if you could call someone who watch children drool on each other a teacher) cooing over what a good big brother he was, how sweet he is, and he’s on his way to middle school. 

He’s a bit early, but that’s fine. So are many other students, nervous and eager. It’s the first time half of them will need to make friends in years, probably don’t even know how. It’s hard to choose where to position himself. On the one hand, too close and he’ll be approached. It’s the halo effect, see. He’s got a pretty face, so he must have an equally good personality to match it. He’d be able to see a few of the daring ones up close, watch for bitten nails or anxiety behind the eyes. 

But then he’d miss the larger picture, have to focus attention on the here and now. Sacrifice quantity for uncertain quality. Decisions, decisions. 

He’s spent too long dithering, and now he’s caught up in a rush of students. Drats. 

Too bad, might as well make the most of it. 

There’s a girl moving towards him with a studied confidence he can almost admire, if her posture wasn’t too relaxed, her shoulders too far back, eyes too wide for it to be real. She’s looking to attract friends to a bubbly personality she doesn’t have. 

A boy with an aggravated scowl is shoving through the crowd, and half of the students scramble out of his way. The other half are pushed as though by the sheer weight of his gait, nothing more than leaves in the wind. He catches Izaya’s eye and is that an honest-to-god _snarl_? 

The fuck?

Coming up the walkway is a familiar face from elementary school, and he lights up on seeing Izaya, hope in his expression. God, this is too easy. He’s clearly hoping they’ll be glued together by foreign situations into an impregnable friendship, Izaya forced out of his shell. Izaya doesn’t move closer, but doesn’t move away either as Suzuki moves closer, greeting him with more familiarity than is probably necessary. More than is welcome, at any rate. 

“Izaya,” he says, cheer bright and not the most forced he’s heard this morning. “I didn’t know you’d be at Raijin.”

It’s probably because he didn’t tell anybody, but Suzuki doesn’t seem to need an answer. He never has. 

“What class are you? Maybe we’ll be classmates again and you can let me in on some of your study tips,” Suzuki gives him an exaggerated wink. “Maybe you’ll have a competitor for top student this year, huh?”

Izaya gives the small chuckle he knows is expected of him, the one makes him just a loner instead of an antisocial asshole and says, “Ah, finally. It gets so boring all alone at the top.”

And he hears an honest-to-god growl from behind him. He swing his head around to see the angry one from earlier staring right at him, teeth bared, fingers curling and uncurling like he could barely stop himself from beating Izaya within an inch of his life. 

Angry Dog turns when a hand lands on his shoulder, another boy, darker skinned than maybe anyone Izaya’s ever seen, and follows him into the school. 

Interesting. 

A faint whine alerts him that Suzuki may have been talking the entire time. 

“Wow, what’d you do to piss off Heiwajima that much? I might have to reconsider spending any time around you, haha,” Suzuki says, and he’s actually edging away from Izaya like he has some horribly contagious disease. Like he’s the one infected with terminal dumbassery. 

“Who’s Heiwajima?” he asks, and he’s not prepared for Suzuki and just about everyone in a ten foot radius to stop dead. 

“You don’t know who Heiwajima is?” says a girl behind him, purple lips parted in surprise. 

“He’s a monster,” another girl says, her face far too close to orgasmic for it to hold any true weight. 

“I heard that he took out an entire yakuza gang just because they stole his juice box,” a boy says, confidence heavy in his tone. 

“Forget that, I don’t think Kimoto is out of the hospital yet. It’s been months.”

And suddenly the air is filled with Heiwajima’s exploits, like a dam has broken. 

If his new classmates are to be believed, Heiwajima is single-handedly responsible for every act of violence within a ten mile radius, can bench press a truck, and hides under the most beautiful face that God saw fit to bless this earth with (not his words). 

The crowd’s turned their attention away from him, whispering to each other Heiwajima’s latest exploits. He’s just about convinced it’ll never end, the story just retold and reduplicated to the status of legend here, on the front steps of Raijin, when the bell rings loud over it all. 

He starts his day. 

He watches as a girl loans another a pencil, disgust in her eyes even as the other girl’s light up inside with joy. 

As the homeroom teacher’s eyes linger just a little too long on legs beneath skirts, twisting his wedding ring all the while. 

As a boy in the corner starts breathing a little to fast, sweating just a little too much when all they’ve done is introduce each other. 

As another boy’s eyes glaze over in boredom as his posture starts to slip.

He’s impassive and above it all. He knows that now that won’t score him anything with his classmates. He’ll be left alone as he wishes. He know that later, it will only make him more attractive, as girls come closer, desperate to crack his shell. As anyone will want their five minutes of glory as his only friend. 

But by then, he’ll have been watching from the corner long enough to know what it’ll take to break them, to watch them walk away and leave him well enough alone.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s wrong. 

He forgot to factor in the budding hormones, how pretty his face his. How polite detachment could be mistaken for kindness under the haze of lust. 

“Ah, Izaya-kun! We’re gonna go get smoothies after school, wanna come?” 

“I’d love to, but I have to watch my sisters after school today, you know how it goes.” 

Every. Day. 

“Orihara-kun! We’re going to a movie this weekend, will you come?”

“Maybe next time, ne?”

For _weeks_. 

On the flip side, it does make it so much easier to get information when people want something from him. 

“Oh, Shizu-chan? We went to elementary school together. He was always coming in so banged up, we sometimes wondered if his parents were abusive. So, what about Wednesday, then?”

“Heiwajima? I’m not really the one to ask. You should talk to Tanaka, they’ve really been inseparable since that incident last year.”

“I heard he took out an entire high school gang last year, isn’t that crazy? Says he hates violence, too. Like, sure you do, man.”

He takes to going to the library for lunch, like he did in elementary school just to take a break from the relentless questions. Are you free? Are you free? Are you free? (Are any of us _really_ free? Ha, philosophy joke.)

If he wanted friends, he’d have them, onviosuly. He’d have the pick of them all, not just the ones that come to him with desperation in their eyes and the twists of their hands. (The cliques have settled. You think I’d take you when no one else wanted you?)

He hasn’t been watching long, but maybe its just become easier with time and practice. He’s only known her two weeks, but he can already tell Machiko-san will have a nervous breakdown before the year is up. Choruko is in love with the homeroom teacher. Torohiro is gay, but desperately wishes he wasn’t. Kirito acts sweet, but he eats bitter food. (Maybe it’s because he’s so sweet and he needs to balance it out? Maybe it’s because he’s secretly bitter on the inside. Who knows, only time will tell.)

They’re all so dull. Pedestrian. Unremarkable. Tedious. All of that and more. (Or less, as it is.)

They just follow the same patterns over and over. When will Todoro learn that his friends are only using him for his money? Kiko has yet to figure out that Katsuo couldn’t possibly give less of a shit, no matter how many times he treats her like trash, she comes crawling back. 

Fuck friends. They’re all _sheep_. Who would want to befriend sheep? 

No, no. That’s not right. Sheep are placid up until the slaughter, don’t suspect a think before the bolt slides between their eyes. Humans, though. Humans do amazing things in the face of death and despair, don’t they? The delay on the green line yesterday to clean up body parts is proof enough of that, isn’t it?

They just need a _push_ to show who they really are. To become extraordinary. Like a mother lifting a car to retrieve her baby, humans only discover what they’re really capable of in moments of crisis. It’s difficulties that show what men are; that idea’s thousands of years old. 

But what’s the use of that, huh? What’d purpose of seeing these humans at their worst, their best? What’s to be gained? He’s human too, after all. Humans can’t just hurt other humans without the impact on themselves, right?

Do what ye will, if ye harm none.

Right?

But can you really ever do anything without causing harm, even in some minor, small way. 

Treat others as you wish to be treated. 

But who _does_ that, really. Certainly not his classmates, certainly not him for that matter. 

The problem with it all is that he can’t remove himself from the equation, can’t find any way to distance himself above it all. 

So he sits in the library, calm and collected, and reading about Irish mythology. It’s gruesome, truth be told. All death and destruction. Those that rise above are those that can destroy the most, can kill the most. 

Like Heiwajima. 

Everyday, he feels a scowl aimed at his back, and it makes the skin itch and crawl like angry ants have taken residence in his skin. Angry eyes aimed at his back. If look could kill, he’d be dead many times over. The frustrating part of it is, he hasn’t the faintest idea _why_. 

Word has it Heiwajima has a younger brother, but Izaya’s never met him. Couldn’t have offended him that way. They don’t take the same train, don’t live in the same neighborhood. Semi-legal (okay, completely and totally illegal) hacking reveals that they don’t share the same forums. (How would Heiwajima know anyway. Izaya prefers those without IP tracking, thank you very much.) He’s not top-of-class material, from what his grades say. (Even less from what his teachers write.) Heiwajima doesn’t seem to be involves in club sports, isn’t even in his class. They’re clearly not rivals in anything.

There is no reason for Heiwajima to dislike him so much.

But this is a patience game. Nothing motivates such like anger, and Heiwajima seems to be taking every last ounce of self-control he posses not to punch Izaya into next week. No, this isn’t a game to be won by confrontation. This is a game to be won by cooly meeting heated glares with a level gaze, maybe a quirk of the eyebrows. 

Smirking would send the wrong message, a sunny smile would be seen as provocation.  

Patience. Reveal nothing. 

Really, he should learn to play poker. Judging by the way Heiwajima’s fists tighten, his scowl deepens, and his brow crinkles in confusion, he does an excellent job.  

Too bad its illegal and he’s twelve. (But those can be worked around, no?)

He gives it five days before Heiwajima approaches him. 

That gives him a few days to figure out what he’ll do when he does. Heiwajima isn’t actually completely friendless, despite the rumors that fly around about him being hellspawn of the highest order. Tanaka sticks close to him like glue, and not all members of the school tremble when they hear him roar. 

And he stuffs his face almost continually with sweets of every color and breed. To feed an inner kindness, maybe? Because he’s rotten on the inside? (Not enough data yet to tell how foods effects personality. Work in progress.)

Days become weeks.

Heiwajima doesn’t approach, just scrunches his nose like he’s smelled something foul while Tanaka shakes his head. (You can tell from fifty feet away that Tanaka is roughly eighty percent of Heiwajima’s impulse control.) Izaya has yet to see the fabled strength in action. And while he’s not sure he wants the first impression to be with his face against a fist, he’s also not sure that it really exists at this point. 

 

Fate is kind to him for once.

It’s a day like almost any other for Izaya, except in the dying light of the end of a winter day, Heiwajima decimates the entire club judo team. 

They weren’t joking when they said he was the definition of violence. 

There’s no grace to the way Heiwajima fights, it’s rough and untrained and clearly him throwing his strength against the nearest barrier and hoping it cracks. 

It’s beautiful.

He’s never seen a human look so honest before, so wild. So close to what makes up the essence of humanity, nearly bestial, really. It’s refreshing. It’s pure. 

He wants to be closer, he wants to be farther away. He wants to know what makes Heiwajima tick. 

He wishes there wasn’t a pane of glass and two floor between them, so he could see the expression on his face. 

He watches a dark-skinned figure rush out of the backdoor of the school and stop dead, moving out of the way of a flying body. Tanaka doesn’t even try to approach the maelstrom on the field. Probably wise, since Heiwajima apparently saw the soccer net as an excellent weapon. 

Izaya watches Tanaka for a moment, waiting for him to call out, to catch Heiwajima’s attention. To exercise some restraint. But he doesn’t. Apparently, Tanaka can only do so much. 

Izaya watches until almost every figure on the field is down flat on the grass, even though it means he’ll probably be late to pick up the twins. It’s worth it when Heiwajima looks up, seeming to make eye contact through the glass, through the distance between them. 

 

Weeks become flu season, announced with the panicked cries of toddlers in the middle of the night. 

Izaya wants to turn over and go back to sleep, to ignore it all through the cotton of his pillow. But they’re making such a a fuss it’s hard to do anything but cross the hall to the twin’s room.

Poor little Kumai is breathing heavily, wailing in-between gasping breaths, her sister puttering around uselessly in the same crib. 

Why they bothered to invest in separate cribs, he’ll never know. 

“Izu-nii, Izu-nii, help,” the healthy one cries, tears forming in her eyes. 

He plucks the sick one out of the crib, feeling snot dribble on his arm with a detached sense of disgust. He uses the other arm to hold the other one. Trying to separate the two of them is useless and a waste of energy. 

He carries the twins downstairs, to the kitchen for no better reason than it seemed the thing to do. He has vague memories of cold medicines in a cabinet somewhere. It must have been years ago. Do cold medicines expire? Does it matter? What’s the dosing for a two-year-old? Can you give hot tea to a toddler? 

Is drugging toddlers ethical if it relives their pain?

He sets the twin on the counter and surveys the kitchen. It’s a sad state of affairs. It’s clean, but mostly a result of disuse than any real efforts at housekeeping. There’s one well used cabinet in the corner that’s full of disgusting cup noodles and cereal for when Izaya can’t find the interest in picking something up on the way home. Or wants to feed the twins. 

They’re two, it’s not like they know what real food even is. (Besides, they love cup noodles. What’re you gonna do, call child services? Ha!)

He kinds something that he thinks is a thermometer in a cupboard over the stove with something that’s congealing and noxiously purple but says ‘fever reducer.’ 

Trying to use a thermometer will a toddler is normally a struggle, but he really stood no chance against two toddlers treating him like the devil incarnate wielding a pitchfork instead of a thermometer. 

(Devil incarnate. Heiwajima. Tom Tanaka as the source of self-control. Remove Tanaka and Heiwajima approaches him, ending his weeks long stand off. )

He gives up on the thermometer. It’s pretty obvious she’s running a fever, magnitude is pretty irrelevant at this point. Right? It’s not like he knows much about children. It’s probably okay.

The congealing medicine _says_ that it expired two years ago, but humans are always lying to make a profit, so that’s really no guarantee. More importantly, it says to not give to children under two, which the twins are safely over. He figures that it’s probably okay. Humans are generally stupid creatures, its unlikely that it’s something truly dangerous, right?

(He can’t rid of Tanaka directly. He’s sure he could convince some idiots to attack Tanaka after school. Maybe some muggers to jump him—)

(No. No, that’d never work.)

It might be pretty irrelevant if the purple goo is safe for toddlers considering that less of it ends up _in_ the Kumai than _on_ the collective Kumai. It’s the thought that counts, right? 

Whatever. He makes tea for himself because Kumai are whimpering pathetically and there’s no chance he’s going to sleep now. He decides to set up camp in on the floor in the living room, turning the TV onto the late, late night news so the twins can watch the pretty pictures or something. It’s a murder scene on currently, but who says there’s no beauty in death? This one’s pretty gruesome, though, he’s mildly amazed its on TV. Guts are half way out of the body, one of the few clues that it even used to be human. It’s mostly hard to tell, given how little skin is left between huge, bloody gashes. 

It’s almost as horrific as children’s programming. No wonder the twins are fascinated. 

(One of Tanaka’s last attackers is still in the hospital, apparently. Two transferred to other schools. Or are dead. Depends on the source. This kind of incongruous information is _infuriating._ )

He goes upstairs to get his homework when the prickling sensation of something drying brings his attention down to his arm. 

No, that’s _disgusting._

It’d be effective. 

If it _worked_. 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained. 

It’s so _low._

People get sick, it happens. Couldn’t trace it back to him either way. 

Incubation period for the common cold is anywhere from twenty-four to thirty-six hours. Introducing the bacterium leads to the best chance of Tanaka’s absence from school later in the week, but only missing Friday. Introducing the bacterium on a Friday afternoon hazards that he rests over the weekend and misses no school, but raises the chances he misses more than one day. 

Then again, who knows how long a snot sample lasts? Best to try for tomorrow and hope Tanaka incubates over the weekend. 

(That's so...so...)

Perfect. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for canon-level izaya shenanigans. see end of chapter notes for more detail.

“I’m so sorry,” the nursery worker says, twisting her apron around in her hands. She’s young, late twenties at most. “It’s against company policy to take sick children. It’s a health hazard.”

She clearly hates confrontation, from the way she looked at her coworker as soon as she saw the snot dangling from Mairu’s nose, from the way she can barely meet his eyes.

Izaya smiles, warmly and friendly, but slightly apologetic. (It’s an art.) “Of course, of course. But I have to get to school.”

She tenses, feeling the strain of disagreement already,“I understand, but, um...”

“Do you maybe have a phone I could use to call my parents? I’m not really sure what I should do,” Izaya says, letting his smile wobble a bit. (Be the white knight _and_ the villain.) “I can’t be late for school, they would kill me.”

The worker brightens, noticeably and rapidly. Here is someone else who bends to the rules for fear of retribution. Who can’t stand up to authority. Just a kid. “Oh! Of course we do,” the worker pulls a handset from behind the counter, hesitating a bit. “You know, we could keep them here until your parents come to pick them up. Just this once, mind.”

“Really?” Izaya’s smile returns with a vengeance and the worker gives him a shaky smile back. 

“Of course, school is important.”

Izaya waits until her back is turned, fussing with the twins trying to get Kumai to blow her nose before he puts the phone back on the counter, unused, and making a break for the door as fast as is not suspicious. 

(Which isn’t all that fast, really. So he walks normally.)

The real problem is that this trick is only going to work once, and he can’t decide if he wants to let his phone go to voicemail when it inevitably rings when no one comes or pick up and pretend to be his father. Or maybe his mother, his voice is still in that rather high-pitched sort of zone, but he has high hopes for the future of not sounding like a goddamn squeaky toy. Something smooth and menacing would be nice, maybe higher than his father’s rocky grumble but several registers lower than his mother’s near-shrill whine. 

But that’s something only time will tell, no real use worrying about it. The bag of snot in his backpack, on the other hand…

He felt something start to boil in the pit of his stomach when he was collecting it, farming Mairu for snot, but that just turned out to be food poisoning from the to-go box he picked up from that new trendy place on the corner. 

But no, there was definitely disgust in collecting the dripping snot out of a two year old, having to handle human bodily fluids. What if it punctures and spills in his bag and he has snot-crusted notebooks? That’s disgusting. 

He’s lucky and the whole debacle with the nurse didn’t put him too far behind schedule, just managing to catch the earlier train than his norm. It’ll be easier to infect Tanaka’s locker before school, when no one is there and Tanaka is sure to, you know, touch it. 

That’ll it’ll make his fans just that much easier to avoid is beside the point. 

In point of fact, its much easier than he expects to smear snot on Tanaka’s locker handle. The only real hardship is applying enough that it’s actually present and not having it be lumpy and viscous and clearly snot on the handle.

But otherwise, the room is empty. The lockers are conveniently labeled and everything, practically an open invitation for nefarious activities. 

Like bioterrorism. But is it really bioterrorism? Wouldn’t it have to effect more people and actually have the intent of, you know, spreading terror? This is more of a targeted attack, really. Is it even illegal to try and make someone sick? It happens all the time on accident. Eh, it’s not like it really matters. He’s not going to get caught, legality only matters if the law finds out. 

After this, it’s only a matter of waiting through the weekend. Maybe he’ll go proper grocery shopping. Eh, but then he’d have to cook, and that takes both skill and effort. Just easier to buy pre-made. So much easier than having to cook for one.  

When will the twins even be able to eat real food. Sure, they eat cereal and fruit snacks and chicken nuggets. Wait, that is real food. Eh, maybe he could start having them split a second entree of food, move them off of crackers and cup noodles. 

Children are hard. Don’t they have grandparents to be foisted off on to? Oh, but he might have to go with them. Never mind. 

It’s hard won, but it’s independence. And more importantly, it’s _his_. 

It’s the work of five minutes to successfully complete his relatively minor act of bioterrorism, to dispose of the incriminating bag of snot in the nearest trash can. All that remains now is to wait, to burn through time until Monday when he can see if his plan came to any sort of fruition. 

The name of the game is patience, and that’s something he has in spades. 

(If it’s a little harder than usual to keep a straight face in the face of Heiwajima’s rage, to keep the smirk from crawling to front and center, then nobody has to know but him.)

 

* * *

 

Saturdays are hard. 

There’s no nursery to drop the twins off, nothing really to do. Now when he goes places he has to bring the twins, can no longer leave them in the safety of their play pen, since they’ve figured out how to work the latch. He’s never been one to sleep in terribly late, and neither are the twins. 

But time marches forward regardless to the wants of humans, something precious and irreplaceable. Best not to waste it. 

That’s how Saturday evening finds him, on his stomach with the sick twin curled into his side under his armpit, sniffling occasionally, with the other providing moral support from her vantage on his back. The two of them are as good as space heaters, chasing away the biting chills that seem to plague him through all seasons. 

What started as a purely intellectual foray into the spread of diseases became an unproductive two hours on how to knit a tissue box cover and then a short anime binge before ending at a forum hosting site, where he’s been ever since.

Online forums are fun.

So many people, hiding behind almost anonymity, forgetting that IP addresses are almost as identifying as a fingerprint. 

That one right there, he’s pretending to be a girl, but he slipped up on pronouns one too many times. 

(Izaya’s better than that, of course. He’s never slipped up on pronoun usage. His English is getting pretty good too. Right now he’s halfway to convincing an American businessman to fund “Kanra’s” ticket to America, where they’ll have absolutely mind-blowing sex, he’s been assured in the crudest terms possible.) 

Another one is pretending to be about ten years younger than he really is, judging by the syntax and word choice. It’s clear that he’s trying his hardest to keep up with the slang, but it changes too fast too often for an outsider to really understand. 

It takes about an hour, but he does eventually find a thread that seems to be Raijin students, from the way they obliquely talk about central characters. (That or all middle schools are essentially the same. What a depressing thought, all the individuality of humans and circumstances boiling down to a single common framework.) 

From there, it’s sheer curiosity that takes him onto one of the depression threads, honest. A pure, honorable, wholesome curiosity to see humanity at its lowest. 

It’s the same curiosity that propels him through “xXxdark-gravityxXx”’s profile, through vague postings dating one, two, three years back. 

It’s the curiosity that compels him to reply to: “ _Tonight’s been really rough guys. Im really considering it…”_ with “ _Spend some time with your family! They’ll always love you!”_ when the post “dark-gravity” thought he deleted two years and three months ago details the death of his family in a horrific car accident. When his first foray onto the depression forum was four months later. 

It’s the curiosity that compels him to trace the IP address to some Podunk town in the middle of nowhere, wondering if he’ll see results. 

It directs him to the town’s newspaper, if one was generous and could call the glorified newsletter anything like that. There aren’t any pictures to go with the scene, only a short blurb that the family had been heading out to dinner when they went off the road into a tree, no indication of why, no indication of alcohol in the driver’s system, the Fukuyo family gone just as quickly as they came. 

Does the loss of family really effect you that strongly, even if you’re not that close? One child in the car, clearly room for the second, but instead he’s at home, online.

What would he do without Kyouko and Shirou? Probably continue on in the same way. It’s not like they’re here now. Ooh, but do they have a life insurance policy? He’d hate to have to be one of those pathetic dropouts that has to work after middle school to support himself. Maybe he’d send Meiru and Kururi to a factory and have them be child laborers like in those old-time novels. They’re twins, there’d be tons of dramatic appeal. Especially is one died dramatically in the arms of the other, frozen out in the cold. Or sacrificed herself in the jaws of an unforgiving machine. But it would all be worth it for their amazing older brother, who raised them, to put him through school.

Or maybe he could become an idol. He’s certainly pretty enough. Do you even have to be able to sing to become an idol? Maybe he could just act. He’s certain he could be a great actor, since he, ya know, already _is_. 

Oh, whoops. Dark gravity’s stopped posting. He’s still online though, according to his status indicator. But is he really? Who knows. What happens to spirits after we die? Are there even spirits? The Irish certainly seemed to think so, with their dullahans and witch hazels and ghosts. 

Actually, most cultures have an answer for what happens when you die. Is that a testament to human desperation that there be something that makes everyone equal, will right all the wrong done unto, something to pad the fear of death? Or is it a testament to the certainty of immortal souls? 

Ah, humans are so unreliable. Even concepts from thousands of years ago are shaky in their foundations

Damn it, it’d be so much easier if there was solid _proof_ one way or the other. An unmistakable sign. 

Ah, ah. But that might be a sign of madness, ne? Countless people have claimed to see this or that, and that’s still not good enough, is it? 

The Kumai collective has gone unnaturally still. A quick glance at the clock shows it to be just a smidge past midnight, probably too late for dinner now. Oh well, he did eat… a meal. Probably. He has hazy memories of something with pork. And there were two of them, one for the twins. They seemed to enjoy it, plus ten big brother points for him. Maybe eventually he’d rack up enough for them to learn  how to say his name properly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for suicide mention, izaya trying to goad someone into suicide 
> 
> i'm also looking for a beta, if anyone wants to help with figuring out if the plot is dumb or not. also, excessive commas.


	4. Chapter 4

Monday dawns drizzly and humid and at the weird border between too hot for a jacket and too cold to go without. Kumai is about as thrilled with this as he is, protesting every step of getting ready, from eating to getting dressed to put on the near useless baby shoes. (He knows they can walk, has seen them do it, they just refuse to out of _spite,_ he can feel it.)

One of them even gags her Cheerios back up onto his shirt while the other laughs, the little shits. The resulting wardrobe change for all three of them puts them behind schedule, missing their usual bus to the nursery. It’s then that Izaya’s jaw begins to ache, spreading down to his shoulders. No matter how he readjusts his backpack, the twins in his arms, nothing is comfortable, everything pulls and aches until he has to set the twins down before he drops them. Predictably, they start to cry and whine, a pathetic chant of “Izu-nii, up!” that draws the attention of oh, _everybody,_ and doesn’t stop until he’s sitting on the filthy ground with them in his lap, clinging with chubby baby hands to his neck, feeling the microbes and dirt through the cloth of his pants and the rare opportunity to be face to face with everybody’s legs. _Fantastic_.  

Then he’s slapped with a fine for ditching his twin sisters at nursery while sick, “ _Oh we’re so sorry, give this to your parents, strike one, company policy…”_ and such drivel until the smile on his face begins to feel thin and strained. It takes nearly all of his willpower to refrain from just snatching the damn letter out of her hands and stalking to the door. 

He takes a later train than usual, one full of those also heading to Raijin. Tries to ignore the group in the corner giggling, looking over at him with what they probably think is subtlety, sneakiness, can feel the grime on the pole he clings to for support like he rarely can, the sticky residue of too many hands before. Can taste it in the air, in the press of so many bodies going here and there.

It’s almost a relief to be on the front lawn of Raijin, having to run before he’s late to homeroom, no time to check if Tanaka managed to overcome his experiments with bioterrorism. 

But that’s no matter. If Tanaka is eighty percent of Heiwajima’s impulse control, he’s one hundred percent of his subtlety and social constraint. It turns out with Tanaka gone, he doesn’t need to seek Heiwajima out at all. In fact, it’s nigh impossible to avoid him. Heiwajima is around every corner, in every hallway, glaring. He can feel it like a burn on his skin, right between the shoulder blades, irritating and painful in turns. 

He’s making it nearly impossible to pick the battleground, the ass. (If he was feeling generous, he might call it a moderately successful intimidation tactic.)

But Izaya is nothing but resourceful. Ducking around a corner. Assimilating into the herd. (Ducking out a fucking window.)

He manages to make it to the end of the day, Heiwajima-less. Considers waiting for tomorrow before dismissing the idea. Tanaka’s absence is an uncertainty tomorrow, but an absolute today. It might not have even been Izaya that caused his absence, could have been something far out of his control and a mere coincidence.

 That just leaves him to choose the battleground. (Er, meeting point.) Somewhere relatively unpopulated, preferablty outside, with few things to throw. The advent of clubs means the soccer pitch is right out. The front step has too many people. That really leaves only one place.

Afternoon and Heiwajima find him reading at one of the bird-crap encrusted tables in the outside courtyard (he considered the roof, but there’s no where to run and can you say _predictable)_ , Irish mythology still the book of choice. (The Fey are just so bloodthirsty, but are able to be kept away with nothing but iron? Dullahans with gold? The Irish are insane.) 

It’s not long before a shadow darkens his table, cutting into his reading light. Izaya pretends not to notice, to be engrossed in his book. (And if the air crackles vaguely with a powerful annoyance, that’s certainly not his intention.)

Hands slam on top of the table so that the whole contraption shakes violently. Izaya glances up from his book and raises a single eyebrow. 

“I don’t like you.”

The voice is surprisingly deep and gravely, for all Heiwajima is a rather thin and weedy teenager on the cusp of puberty. (It’d be funny if he couldn’t bench press a truck. As it is, it’s still funny, but dangerous to say so.) He doesn’t speak with any malice either, it’s more of a statement of fact than anything else. Izaya waits, but he doesn’t follow it up with any sort of explanation. 

“Oh? That’s too bad. I rather like you,” Izaya says, using a finger to bookmark his spot to give Heiwajima his full attention. “We could have a lot of fun together.” 

“What?” Heiwajima looks taken aback. Well, sort of. He’s still scowling, but Izaya suspects that’s more of a default expression than something with real feeling behind it. No, wait, that’s real annoyance. “Why? Are you mocking me? You don’t even _know_ me.”

He bites back the obvious retort that Heiwajima doesn’t know him _either_ , yet _he’s_ clearly make a decision. But there are fingers tearing gouges in the table top. Clearly this conversation is better has with less potential projectiles. 

“Of course not,” Izaya says, pulling his bag onto his shoulders, and moving towards the door. He looks over his shoulder to check that Heiwajima is following, only to be greeted with the screech of protesting metal and a flying table. His body moves before he has to think about it, twisting clear with a grace born of coordination. 

That’s when he runs for the door, trying to break free of the courtyard before another table gets too close

Heiwajima follows him, teeth grinding so hard he can hear it from ten feet away. He planned the courtyard for it’s large doors and easy exits, but didn’t count on the time it takes to open a door that pulls towards you. It’s an oversight on his part, puts him in striking range. He’s inside the hallway when Heiwajima catches up, lengthy strides making up for lost time. It’s instinct that has him twisting to the side, and he can feel the air Heiwajima’s fist displaces as it moves mere inches from his cheek, as the force of his missed punch brings him closer. This close, he can see the expression on Heiwajima’s face, can smell the sweat, can see they way that the punch is more a flailing of a limb than anything trained. He spins out from Heiwajima’s personal space, lets Heiwajima’s own momentum carry him further away when his strike doesn’t hit the expected target.

Izaya’s body has always responded to what he’s told it to do, he’s never been clumsy or awkward. But this, this is another level of body awareness. He feels hyperaware, like he’s finally using all his senses at full force. 

 “I like your strength,” Izaya says, as Heiwajima turns, fist raised in expectation of another blow, and stops dead. 

It would be comical (Fuck it, it _is_ comical _)_ the way Heiwajima goes from sheer rage to utter confusion in exactly two seconds flat. Then to _unaltered fury._

(It’s breath taking.)

(Also hysterical.)

“Bastard! You don’t even know what strength is!”

Izaya runs. 

He runs faster than he ever thought possible, out the doors onto the front lawn, swing on his side this time. He hears the distant crash of the front doors flying off of their hinges, but he doesn’t stop to check. He just runs out the front gate, onto the street, heavy footfalls behind him alerting him of Heiwajima’s continued pursuit. 

He goes down an alley, up another. Across a road through another alley, the heavy footfalls dogging him the whole way. He’s not quite sure where they are anymore, he’s been here once or twice, but it’s not the intimate knowledge of the area around Raijin. He makes another right emerging onto a small side street. 

He didn’t plan for Heiwajima to be hit with a freaking van, but he’ll forever tell anyone who asks that he did. 

There’s no sound of crunching bones like he would have expected, just the dull thump of heavy impact followed by a continuous stream of heavy cursing. 

“Oh my god, I swear I didn’t see him.” Ah, that would be the van driver, explaining to everyone and everything that he can’t be responsible for his own actions. 

“Ah, don’t worry, he’s fine,” Izaya says, sauntering back with a smile. “He’s make of tougher stuff than you or I.” 

“Who are you?” the van driver says, already turning back to his van, clearly wanting to be away from the scene of the crime more than he cares about Heiwajima. 

“Ah, I’m just a friend of the person you hit,” Izaya says, cheerfully enough that it’s clearly a threat, pulling a few yen out of his wallet. 

It’s not much, but the driver grabs it and hops back into his truck. Heiwajima is still somewhere between the ground an a vaguely upright position when Izaya takes his arm and slings it across his shoulders. 

It’s probably comical, considering that Heiwajima is a good four inches taller and Izaya looks like he was built with all the sturdiness of a twig. It probably looks like a good friend helping another out, hopefully, and not an attempted kidnapping. 

Izaya feels the arm tensing around his shoulder and knows, in that moment, that his life is entirely in Heiwajima Shizuo’s hands, there’s no recourse if Heiwajima wants him dead.

He hates it. 

“Come on, Shizu-chan, homeward bound,” he says, tone light and lilting. He feels the arm slacken in shock, then tense again in anger. 

Shizu-chan is very expressive. 

“What did you just call me?” Heiwajima snarls, but he starts to move when Izaya does and doesn’t move his arm, even if he doesn’t put enough weight on Izaya to truly justify it. 

It doesn’t feel sheerly cosmetic either, if the wobble in Heiwajima’s ( _Shizu-chan’s)_ step is anything to go by, and the way his free hand finds its way to his head, like he’s trying to keep it in place. Izaya supposes a few weakness can be forgiven, given the sitatuon.

“Shi-zu-chan,” Izaya repeats slowly, stressing each syllable. “Shouldn’t we have nicknames for each other, now that we’re friends?”

“We’re not friends,” Heiwajima says. “And my name’s Heiwajima Shizuo. Not whatever bullshit you just came up with.” 

“We’re not?” Izaya says, mock hurt in his voice, to see if it works. “Why not?”

“Friends like each other,” Heiwajima says, straightforward and matter-of-fact. (Huh. You would have thought Heiwajima to be more susceptible to manipulation, not less.)

_Not necessarily_ , Izaya wants to say. _I can give you five examples._

He senses that will go nowhere fast. 

“That hurts, Shizu-chan, you haven’t even given me a chance.”

Heiwajima doesn’t say anything to that. Doesn’t say anything at all on the long walk to his house, arm still heavy around Izaya’s shoulders. Izaya wonders if he’s forgotten that it’s there, expect for when a turn a little too fast and the weight increases just the slightest amount. Heiwajima doesn’t even ask how Izaya knows where he lives, doesn’t give directions, just lets himself be led. It’s hard to remember after a few blocks that Heiwajima could kill him with barely a thought, could snap his neck and walk away unscathed. 

No, that’s not quite right. The reminder that he _should_ be scared is ever-present wherever Heiwajima’s arm rests. No, it’s hard to remember _to be_ scared when he’s not, when he feels like laughing instead. When his stomach is doing the same twists and turns when he’s only felt at high point of a roller coaster, moments before the drop.

It’s not fear. It’s anticipation instead, high and euphoric. It’s an adrenaline rush of the best kind, senses heightened, limbs ready. He could explode into action at any moment.  

“All right,” Heiwajima says, heavy and full of a sigh when they’re almost to the front door of his home. Izaya doesn’t jump with the suddenness of the remark, but only just. 

“All right, _what_?” Izaya repeats, almost irritated. 

Heiwajima sighs _again._ It’s a gusty sound, heavy with annoyance. Izaya hates it. 

“All right, I’ll give you a chance,” Heiwajima repeats, not like he’s been condemned. 

“You don’t have to sound so happy about it, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, tone as dry as he can muster.

“Jesus, don’t call me that. Why are you complaining? Aren’t you getting what you wanted?”

Izaya finds that he ha no interest in answering that question and elects to ignore it. 

“Then what should I call you? How about senpai? Does that make you feel better?”

“Sure. Whatever. What’s your name anyway?” 

There’s a cold feeling somewhere in Izaya’s stomach. 

They’ve been locked in a Cold War for _weeks_ and he doesn’t even know his name? 

It makes an odd laugh start to bubble up in his stomach, one that feels like it has sharp edges. He swallows it down. Hard. 

“Orihara Izaya,” he says, enunciating sharply, hoping that maybe it cuts into _Shizuo-senpai’s_ mind. His jaw starts to ache, how did he not realize that the material of Heiwajima’s jacket felt like sandpaper on his skin? He shoves the arm off roughly, letting Heiwajima walk unaided the last few feet to his own door. 

If Heiwajima notices through his thick skull, he gives no indication, just stands and looks at Izaya while scratching his cheek, like he’s a piece of dog shit on the bottom of his shoe, unwanted and gross. 

“Uh, do you wanna come in?” Heiwajima says eventually, shifting from foot to foot. “I’m sure you’d be welcome for dinner, if you wanted.” 

“No thanks,” Izaya says. “I have other things to do.” 

“Alright,” Heiwajima says, “See you tomorrow then, Izaya-kun.” 

Izaya watches as Heiwajima climbs the stairs to his front door, closing it behind him with a solid click, not looking back once. 

Izaya wants to bury a knife in that retreating back, just to give Heiwajima something to remember him by.


	5. Chapter 5

There’s a headache budding behind his eyes, straining its way across his shoulders and jaw. 

He’s halfway to the nursery center to get the twins when he becomes vaguely conscious of a sharp pain in his hand, his fingers aching. Further inspection reveals red, moon-shaped crescents blooming in his palm.

He’s later than usual picking the twins up, but he’s not _late._ Not really. The center doesn’t close for a few hours yet, no real reason to think he’s abandoned the twins. 

He can hear their shrieks through the outer doors.

“You must be really close,” the nursery worker says, handing two snot and tear crusted children over. He can’t quite tell if its annoyance or envy in her tone. Could be both. “They were really upset that you were late, they kept calling for you.”

“Uh-huh,” Izaya says noncommittally. Can’t quite tell if that’s an admonishment or a simple comment. Could be both. He doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. 

He does pick up two containers of stir-fry on the way home, though. The twins aren’t the best with utensils yet, but he thinks they can manage to pick up the bits with their little baby fingers. The twins seem to be content to snuggle up into him in silence the way home, grabbing at his shirt with sticky nasty baby fingers. They’re getting a bit heavy, though, especially since he has to carry both to avoid any incidents with doors and little fingers. (And dirt. And germs. And running off. And theoretically kidnappers, though he’s not sure he would fight all that hard if somebody wanted one of them.) He should invest in a pair of baby leashes, walk or be dragged. (Life is rough. Best to learn that early.)

“Izu-nii,” the one in his right arm says, “cake.”

“We don’t have any cake,” Izaya says as patiently as he can, trying to slot the key into the doorknob without dropping it. It’s hard with a toddler in your arm(s). 

“No,” says the one in his other arm, patting his face, “Izu-nii cake.”

“We don’t have any cake,” he says again, finally winning the struggle with the key, twisting it so that the door opens. “We can get some tomorrow.”

“No,” the first one says, sounding as frustrated as he feels.

“Fine then, no cake.”

“ _No,”_ both the twins says in unison as he steps inside. 

“Learn more words if you want to communicate,” Izaya snaps. “I’m not playing twenty questions.”

(Later, Kumai throw all the broccoli in their stir-fry at his face. He considers their complaint noted.)

 

Tuesday starts  like all days do. Wake up, twins up, clothes on, out the door. Same routine, different day. 

Sit on the stairs to Raijin, take top step for maximum viewing capacity. 

“Oi.”

Ooh, what’s this? A break in routine. An aberration, in more ways than one.

Heiwajima, sitting on the steps. He’s got a lollipop in his hand, twisting the stick between his fingers. It looks more menacing than any bright pink sweet has any right to be. 

“Oh, Shizuo-senpai. Good morning.” 

A grunt. 

“I don’t usually see you out here this early,” Izaya says. 

“I usually walk with Tom-san from the train station, but he’s been sick lately,” the stick stops rolling. “Do you know anything about that?”

Izaya raises an eyebrow, “About being sick? Only what I’ve experienced. And I suppose what I know from biology. It’s quite fascinating, really.” 

“No, not about _being sick,_ you... Ah, never mind. Tom-san it was ridiculous.” Brown eyes cast up to look at him. The color is warm, like that of honey, but the look is cold. “But you had something to do with it, didn’t you?”

Izaya opens his mouth, not quite sure what he’s going to say yet, hoping to let charisma take the wheel. But Heiwajima speaks before he can.

“But if Tom-san doesn’t blame you, I guess it doesn’t matter, right?” Heiwajima stands, picking his bag up from beside him in one motion. “We usually eat up on the roof.” 

“Very anime protagonist of you, Shizuo-senpai.”

“You don’t have to come,” Heiwajima growls. It’s like his only two emotions are annoyance and pure rage. (All the emotional range of an especially shallow, angry teaspoon.)

“I didn’t say that,” Izaya says. “Students aren’t usually allowed up there, though. How will I get up?”

(He could pick the lock, of course. It’d take a while, but he could do it.)

“Huh? I don’t remember the door being locked. You should trying pushing on it.”

And with that, Heiwajima disappears into the building. 

 

He considers not showing up. Almost doesn’t, but the thought that Heiwajima won’t wonder why he didn’t come rears its ugly head and propels him up the staircase. It’s no use shunning someone if they don’t know what they did, the silent treatment only works if they know they’re being treated. 

The door at the top of the staircase is unremarkable expect for the “No Admittance” sign in bright lettering, and the door knob twists easily. That’s odd, it had a deadbolt— ah. It still does, lodged in the doorframe, ripped from its counterpart in the door. Likely Heiwajima didn’t even notice the extra resistance. 

It’s bright up on the roof with nothing to filter the sunlight. It’s not exactly a prime place to people watch, the students being largely indoors and the people walking by on the street not especially interesting or easy to see from this distance.

It certainly lends Heiwajima a look of drama and brooding angst, the way he clings to the chainlink fence and stares at the pedestrians out on the street. 

Heiwajima does note his presence though, with a gruff: “Hey.” 

And apparently he’s worth more than that, as he swings his way off the chainlink fence. The way Heiwajima moves is dramatic, motions oddly fluid and larger than they need to be. Even the expression on his face is exaggerated, a scowl only punctuated by the heavy bags under his eyes.

“I didn’t expect you to come.”

“Why not?” Izaya says. “Isn’t that what friends do, meet at lunch?”

“It’s what Tom-san and I do,” Heiwajima agrees. “I dunno. I just felt like you wouldn’t.”

“Not even two days in, and you think I’m unreliable,” Izaya shakes his head. “I see we’re off to a fantastic start.”

Heiwajima runs a hand through his hair and makes a frustrated sound. “I just meant that…Never mind. I’m not very good with people.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell.”

A snort. 

Silence. 

Izaya lets it hang, as uncomfortable as it clearly is for Heiwajima. (And for him. Words press against the back of his throat. Something, anything to break the damn silence.)

He gives in. Other people like people they feel comfortable with. Uncomfortable silences are not conducive to building friendships. 

“I suppose it’s lucky for you that I’m excellent with people,” Izaya says, coming closer to peer out at the pedestrians with Heiwajima. (They’re not doing anything particularly interesting from this distance.)

“Doesn’t seem like it.” 

“How so?”

“You don’t have any friends.”

“Ah, have you been watching me?” Izaya feels something like victory well up in his chest. He should feel disconcerted, but instead he feels vindicated. 

“No. There’s just no other reason for you to be on the roof with me.”

It’s stated like a fact, like a logical deduction. The words smack of self-hatred, of perceived unworthiness, but the tone doesn’t. The tone says that this just _is. (_ It’s bewildering.) How do you respond to that?

He knows how to respond to those that he rarely interacts with. That’d be easy, empty reassurances. (Oh, of course not. I like your personality/face/body/etc etc.) But how do you draw someone in? How do you make them _stay_?

No, he doesn’t need Heiwajima to stay, just be close enough to observe. He’s an interesting human, after all. All the evidence points that way. You only need to be close enough long enough to find what makes him tick, that’s all. 

He’s let the silence linger too long, and now it sounds like agreement. 

Damn it, he’s usually better than this, but something about Heiwajima is throwing him off. It must be the other’s distinct hatred of social niceties. 

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Eventually. Humans need to eat to live,” Izaya says. He’s not hungry. He’ll eat at dinner, like he normally does.

A deeper scowl.

“I meant lunch. Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?”

A deep, deep sigh. “Like a fucking asshole. Answer the damn question straight on. I said I’d give you a chance, not be your friend no matter how much of a fucking dipshit you are.”

Overreaction? Honest anger? Then again, Heiwajima’s not exactly known for his self-restraint. 

“Maybe you should ask better questions,” Izaya says. “I didn’t lie, I _am_ going to eat eventually. Just not _now_. You should be more careful with your questions. It allows for truths that are actually lies.”

“What does that even _mean_?”

“It’s quite simple. Vague questions leave room for interpretation, which leaves room for answers to the question you didn’t mean to ask. I could lie while telling the truth.”

“That makes no sense. You sound like a fucking conman.”

“Hm, no. Just one of the many ways humans fail to communicate while communicating,” Izaya counters. “It’s fascinating.” 

“You remind me of Shinra.”

“Is that a compliment?”

Heiwajima screws his face up in such a way that the answer is clear. “Could be. Sometimes. He’d follow me around in elementary school trying to get a blood sample.” A snort. How flattering, to be compared to a mini psychopath. “Said we weren’t true friends until we exchanged blood.

“Did you give him one?”

“Hell no.”

“You shouldn’t be so easy to turn away friends, senpai. You don’t have very many.”

“I’d rather have none than be surrounded by people I don’t like,” Heiwajima says, and it’s so painfully honest that Izaya doesn’t take it for the lie it is for most people. Heiwajima really would rather go without. Humans are social creatures, need to connect with others to maintain mental health. It’s a proven fact.

“Ah, I apologize, then,” Izaya says. Apologies cost him nothing. He’s seen others struggle with apologizes, seen them get caught up in the nets of other’s pride. He’s not even sure what he’s apologizing for, it just feels appropriate. Like something you do, like smile when someone smiles at you. 

“Sure, but you’re not sorry,” Heiwajima says. 

“What? I just apologized,” Izaya says, feeling his jaw start to tense. 

“Apologizing and being sorry are different.”

“How so?”

“Being sorry means you won’t do it again,” Heiwajima says. “Apologies are just words.”

“Ah,” Izaya says. “I see.” He does. He knows this and exploits it often. 

“You don’t.” 

“Antagonizing your new friend isn’t giving them a chance,” Izaya says. 

“I’m sorry. You’re just so, so—” Heiwajima struggles for words, gesturing with his hands. 

“Charming? I know, sometime’s I’m just so beautiful that others can’t speak. It’s a burden I must bear.”

“ _Slimy,”_ Heiwajima comes up with, but he’s smiling, and the awkward tense air seems to relax. Izaya’s shoulders unbunch from where they had crept up around his ears. 

“Rude, senpai. Not kind at all.”

“I’m not kind,” Heiwajima says. “But seriously, do you have lunch?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Heiwajima sounds absolutely scandalized. 

“Because I have no food. Three meals a day is excessive.”

“Well, come on then,” Heiwajima says, reaching for Izaya’s arm. Izaya twists out of the way. Heiwajima continues undaunted to the door. 

“Where?”

“To food,” Heiwajima says, as though he’s talking to a particularly unintelligent child. 

“I don’t _want_ food,” Izaya says as they tromp down the stairs. 

“Food is important. Like you said, humans need to eat to survive.”

And that’s how he ends up with a vending machine sandwich in one hand and a can of tea in the other. 

“I’m perfectly capable of buying my own lunch if I want it,” Izaya points out, watching as Heiwajima buys the most sugar loaded thing he can get his hands on. 

“But you didn’t. That’s why I’m the senpai.”

“Playing the big strong man, I see. It’d be more effective if I was a girl. Or wanted food.”

“You’re such a shit,” Heiwajima says, but it sounds resigned. 

“Nope, just keeping you honest,” Izaya counters. 

“You wouldn’t know honesty if it bit you in the ass.”

The bell for the end of lunch rings, leaving Izaya with a sandwich, tea, and an impending sense of doom. 

 

Heiwajima is sitting on the steps of Raijin at the end of the school day, standing when he sees Izaya. 

“You ready?” he asks. 

“For what?” To duke it out to the death on the lawn? Form a crime-fighting vigilante duo? To go deal with the mini-terrors? 

No to all of the above.

“To go home,” Heiwajima replies, like this is habit, why is Izaya being so dense and not at all like this is a completely random accostment on Heiwajima’s part. 

“Inviting yourself over already? I didn’t realize we’d become such good friends,” Izaya says, letting the smirk he can feel budding at the corners of his mouth spread. 

Heiwajima is unimpressed. “I walk Tom-san home, usually. It’s dangerous around here with all these gangs hanging around.”

“I dunno, senpai,” Izaya says, rocking back onto his heels, mock thoughtful face. “I haven’t really had any issue with that, but I hear that you do. I think I’m actually safer _without_ you.” Izaya lets his grin turn sly, “Or are you actually looking for my protection.” Izaya gestures vaguely at himself. “All you have to do is ask.” 

“I wouldn’t trust you to guard a paperclip,” Heiwajima says. 

“You’re not very kind, senpai. Here I am, offering you protection, and you cast aspersions on my character and physique,” Izaya pouts dramatically. “It’s like you don’t want to be friends at all.” 

“You couldn’t offer me protection from the gangs if you tried,” Heiwajima says. 

Izaya’s eyes narrow, “That sounds like a challenge.” 

“Can’t be a challenge if it’s not in your reach.” 

“Ah, what will you give me if I succeed?” 

“What?”

“If I protect you from the gangs,” Izaya repeats. “What will you give me? Tit for tat, Shizu-chan. Quid pro quo.” 

“Isn’t the point of friendship that you do nice things for each other and expect nothing in return?”

“No. The point of friendship is that you feel like somebody cares about you in this cold, unfeeling world, that little rush of endorphins. They don’t, of course. It’s all about what you can do for them. But it’s the herd mentality that got us so far.”

Heiwajima’s just staring at him. “Were you hugged enough as a child?”

“Are you offering?” 

“Hell no.” 

“I suppose you have your answer. Now, what’s mine? What will you give me, Shizuo-senpai?”

“Somebody who cares about you in this cold, unfeeling world,” Heiwajima says, traces of mockery in his tone. “And I’ll mean it.” 

“The point of an exchange is that I get something that I want,” Izaya says, smirk cold on his face. It feels a bit frozen.

“You are,” Heiwajima says flatly. “Come on. I’ll buy you a milkshake, you look like a fucking twig.”

Izaya hates milkshakes. 

He drinks it anyway.

Sort of.

“Jesus, if you don’t like it, don’t eat it,” Heiwajima chides from across the table. “It’s painful watching you.”

“It’s painful to _drink_ ,” Izaya admits. 

“More for me,” Heiwajima says as he snatches Izaya’s abandoned cup.

“Ooh, Shizuo-senpai, it’s like a second-hand kiss,” Izaya says as he flutters his eyelashes, resting his face in his hands, elbows on the table. 

“Don’t be disgusting,” Heiwajima says, but he starts in on Izaya’s milkshake all the same. 

“I have to go soon. Don’t worry about me, I can take care of all the big, bad ruffians around these parts.”

Heiwajima glares at him from under his fringe. 

“Why don’t you want me to walk you home?” Heiwajima says around the straw of his drink. “I’m not gonna rob you or anything.” 

“A lady doesn’t put out on the first date.” 

“I’m not. We’re not. No. Just,” Heiwajima puts his face in his hands as Izaya laughs. 

“Ah, no need to get flustered, Shizu-chan. Everyone gets nervous the first date.”

“You’re such a shit,” Heiwajima finally manages to get out. “And don’t call me that.” 

“But Shizuo-senpai is _such_ a mouthful.” Izaya pauses. “That sounded dirty.” 

Heiwajima puts his face on the (disgusting, bacteria infested) tabletop.

“I can’t take you out in public,” Heiwajima says into the table. It’s only a bit muffled. 

“Kinky. But I’m a bit young to be an in-house sex-slave so—”

“Stop. Jesus, just _stop._ I won’t ask about your home, so you can stop,” Heiwajima says, face a bit red. (Lies, it’s bright red and almost _glows._ It’s fantastic. He wishes he had a camera.)

Izaya feels the smirk he didn’t know was on his face begin to wilt a bit at the corners. “I didn’t know Shizuo-senpai was such a prude. In light of your delicate sensibilities, I’ll stop.” 

“Thank you,” Heiwajima sounds so relieved Izaya bites down on, _Next time, we’ll have a proper safe-word._

(He’s a saint, really.)

“So other than your clearly rampant porn addiction,” Heiwajima starts, once his face has cooled down to human levels, “what do you do in your free time?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“It’s an ice-breaker, that’s what it is. Now answer the damn question.” 

“You looked it up online, didn’t you?” Izaya says, dropping one hand so he can cradle his cheek in the remaining. “Nobody really asks those questions. Nobody cares. Either you stick around long enough to find out or you don’t.”

“Well, _I_ asked that question. Are you going to answer it or not?” There’s an annoyance in Heiwajima’s tone that suggests it’s about to become anger. 

“I hang around on forums, read manga,” Izaya shrugs. “Topple third world regimes. You know, normal teenager stuff.” 

“Alright, now you ask me a question.”

“You pulled this straight from a girl’s magazine, didn’t you?”

“Shut up.”

“It’s cute that you care.”

“Just ask a damn question,” Heiwajima growls. 

“Hm, is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. What’s your favorite color? Is that better?” Izaya scoffs. “I thought you wanted to get to know one another. You can’t know someone with surface level questions.” 

Heiwajima frowns,“you can’t know someone by what they say, either. Words are cheap. I haven’t lost anyone. So I can say whatever I want and not have it mean a damn thing. It’s like what you said about the vapid questions.” 

“Vague.” 

“Whatever. Ask another question. And don’t be a pretentious shit head this time,” Heiwajima gestures vaguely with a hand, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out another lollipop. 

“Hm, as charming as this game is, I do have to go,” Izaya says as he stands, waving over his shoulder. “Bye, Shizu-chan, I enjoyed our date.”

“ _You little—”_

The door closes on whatever Heiwajima says, but the scandalized look of the women in line gives him a pretty good idea.


	6. Chapter 6

The nursery worker behind the counter today is new. 

“Oh, are they twins?” she exclaims as she hands them over. 

_No, I just found one in the park and decided what the hell?_

_No, I just wanted a spare and bought a matching one off of Craigslist. Amazing, the things you can find on the internet._

_Triplets, actually. Where’s the other one?_

“Yes,” he says with a smile that feels like a grimace. 

“Aren’t your parents lucky! Twins are a sign of good luck, you know,” she smiles.

“Ah, I’ll be sure to remind them when they’re changing two diapers at a time,” he says with enough of a smile that it’s a joke. 

“So, how do cup noodles sound for dinner?” he asks the twins, once they’re safely out the door. 

“No,” comes the definite answer from both arms. 

“I think I should. There’s nothing in cup noodles that can be easily thrown,” Izaya retorts. 

“No, Izu-nii, no,” says left arm twin. He’s going to have to figure out which one’s which soon. Maybe he should flip a coin.

Oh no wait, throwing hot cup noodles would hurt. 

“Second thought, we’ll get something from the grocery store.”

“Cake!”

“Sure.”

He stops by the small corner store near his house. They haven’t got much, and what they do have is ludicrously overpriced, but they do have decent ready meals. And, apparently, cake. 

“Cake!”

The cashier mindlessly scans his item as she watches the TV at the same time. How neglectful. Izaya has his arms full of child and he still could have nicked about three hundred yen worth of candy from the counter. 

“Something interesting?” Izaya asks dryly. 

“Not really, more of the same. Stabbings, robberies. The usual.” She bags his items for him. “You should be careful. There’s been an increase in gang violence around here.” 

“I’ll keep an eye out, thanks,” he says as he leaves the store. 

“Cake!” 

“Yes, we got cake. I’m really too good for you.”

“Cake!”

It’s a short walk to his front door, but it feels like miles by the time he gets there, arms straining. 

“You two are getting fat. I’m going to have to stop carrying you if you keep this up.” 

“Cake!”

“Exactly.” The house is exactly as empty as he left it. It’s starting to get that unused, musty smell. Maybe he should invest in some sort of cleaning service to come in when he’s at school. The family bank account certainly allows for it. He’ll make some calls. 

As soon as he sets the twins down, they’re scampering into the kitchen and plopping down onto the floor. “Cake!” 

Well. That’s gonna be a habit that’s hard to break later in life. But eating on the floor is preferable now, so he lets it slide. 

“I’m pretty sure that dessert is supposed to come after dinner.”

“Cake.”

“Fair point.” He opens the plastic container of cake and sets it on the floor while he slaves over heating the preprepared food in the microwave. It’s a skill few appreciated, evenly warming the food without making any part too hot and without splattering the inside of the microwave. But Izaya is nothing but a master, and soon both sets of meals are ready to go. 

It’s then that he realizes his mistake. 

He turns around to locate the twins, but all that remains is a smear of chocolate icing on the floor and a single foot print done precisely in icing half way across the kitchen. 

There’s a crash from the living room, followed by a dull thud. 

Izaya doesn’t run. But he does take a deep breath, taking time to let it really sink into his lungs, before exhaling and going into the living room. 

There’s shards of porcelain on the floor and Kyouko’s hideous decorative vase is missing. There’s several places along the walls where there appears to be chocolate at about knee level, quickly explained when a pair of twins zooms by, one in front of the other. The one in behind shoves the other into the wall, giving a dull thud, before dashing off in another direction. It takes a moment, but body slammed twin dashes off after the other. It takes several repetitions for Izaya to understand that they’re playing an especially violent game of tag. 

He lets them to it. Nobody’s crying, it’s fine. 

He eats his dinner in the semi-darkness of the kitchen, not bothering to turn on the lights, listening to the dull thud-thuds of his sisters ‘playing’ with each other. 

He should probably clean up the porcelain before little baby feet step on it and it becomes a whole ordeal, but for some reason the whole process of getting the broom, sweeping, gathering seems so draining that he struggles to start. 

But he does, then fetches his laptop from upstair, laying on his stomach in the living room.

“How would you go about manipulating entire gangs?” he asks the twins, both of them coming down from their high, if their slowing movements and increased rebound time is any indication. 

“Cake!” 

“Interesting thought, but not particularly helpful.” He’s scanning through the forums. Of course, there are mentions of Heiwajima here and there. Obliquely, of course. None of them know his name. He’s just that ‘freakishly strong kid,’ that ‘middle school brat.’

Half of the posts that he thinks are about Heiwajima are warnings, but the other half are calls to action, with enough of them that it would be dangerous to single Heiwajima out as is. 

Izaya cracks his fingers and sets to work. 

Reviving dead accounts, creating new usernames, seeding trust among Tokyo’s gang population. At one point, he has five chat screens open, using information from one screen to win over another. 

It’s not going to be the work of a night, he knows this. He can plant suggestions, but long term avoidance is going to take a long-term game plan. It’s fine. He’s prepared for that.

He sends one last crucial message off before he looks up. It’s been hours. Kumai have come crashing down from their sugar high and fallen asleep, if the warm weight on his back is any indication.

He twists on to his side, and the twins land on the floor with a dull _thud_ , but miraculously don’t wake up. They’re still in their street clothes, and now that’s he’s looking he can see they’re getting a bit small, a bit tight. 

Damn it. That means he’ll have to go shopping. For baby clothes. In baby stores filled with babies and people with babies. Just. Ugh. 

And he’ll have to bring the twins. Maybe there will be clothes in normal department stores now. He could just buy the clothes really big and wait for them to grow into them. That solves the problem for another year at least. Maybe two, if they turn out to have stunted growth cycles. 

He puts one twin in each arm, placing them both in one cradle. That’s another thing that will have to be replaced soon. They’re getting too big for their individual cradles, let alone sharing one. 

Ah, what a pain. 

Izaya collapses onto his own bed without bothering to change. It makes his skin crawl a little bit, to imagine the germs from the train, bus, nasty fast food joint (was that really only earlier today?) getting on his bed, but he tells himself he’ll do laundry tomorrow, and that’s the last thought he has.

* * *

 

It’s around two a.m. (or, two short, _short_ hours later) when the phone rings, shrill and unwelcome in the morning air. One of the twins begins to cry at the rude awakening. Then the other, because anything worth doing is worth doing together. 

That’s right, he’d been meaning to have that disconnected. He certainly never uses the landline, preferring the convenience of a cellphone. It’s not like anyone ever calls, anyway.

Ah, but the inconvenient, rude timing could only mean one thing. 

“Hello, mother,” he says into the aging handset. It’s so old it’s still got a looped cord connecting it to the wall, giving a short range of motion. Far too short to, say, check on the twins, inevitably covered in snot. “How are you?”

_“Oh, I’m good, I’m good. Your father and I just got off a plane, you know how it is.”_ He has no idea how it is. He’s never been outside of Japan. _“How are you, Izaya? School’s going well?_ ”

“I’m fine, school’s fine,” Izaya says. Sometime he wonders if it would matter if he answered differently. Would they come home if he wasn’t? Would they care? 

_“That’s good, that’s good. How are the twins?”_

_“_ Probably okay. I sold them into human trafficking,” he says. 

_“Oh, that’s good,”_ comes the reply. 

“Hm,” is all he says to that. And he waits. She never calls without reason. The dead air on the phone might be unnerving to some, but it sounds like victory to him when she sighs and says: “ _We won’t be coming home this weekend as planned, but we have plans to be there the end of term.”_

News to him. He had no idea they were coming back this weekend. Or ever.

“Ah,” he says. Neutral. 

“ _So we’ll be back in time for your birthday, at least,”_ she says. On anyone else it might sound contrite. On her, it sounds flat, unapologetic. 

He doesn’t say: my birthday isn’t anywhere near the end of this term. It’s not like you were there or anything.

He doesn’t say: don’t bother coming back at all. I don’t need you. 

He doesn’t say: it’s two a.m. here, you hideous cow (though he thinks it really, _really_ hard).

There are a million and one things he doesn’t say. 

Instead he says: “That’ll be interesting.”

And she says: “ _Ah, we’re next in line for customs. Gotta go.”_

And hangs up. 

Izaya puts the receiver down, and goes to comfort his crying sisters.

He turned thirteen two days ago. 

He didn’t even realize. 

* * *

 

The next day, he starts a gambling ring on accident, honest. 

“I can’t believe the Giants _lost_.” 

“Pfft, with Johiro as pitcher you didn’t think they’d win, did you?”

Ew. Baseball. Who cares? A handful of barely physically fit men running around a small patch of green. 

“What? I bet you five hundred yen they win the next game!”

A sharp laugh, “Please. You didn’t even pay me back for the soda from last week.”

Wow, baseball. What a fascinating sport. 

“I’ll take you up on that,” Izaya says, turning to face his two classmates.

Alright, he may have instigated a _little._ Just a teeny bit. Really barely noticeable. But he doesn’t do when the next student approaches wanting to make a bad bet. Just… gives odds and takes the money. Gambling is easy, after all, when you know probability. 

He’s not sure when he makes the transition from bettee to bookie. (That’s a lie. It was when the third person asked if he took bets. House always wins, ne?) But it gives him extra cash that he doesn’t have to explain to his parents. 

Or, at least, that’s what he tells the upperclassman that asks, that slaps him on the back a bit too hard and says, “Good man.” 

Then he watches as the upperclassman’s girlfriend frowns when he returns. 

“What’s wrong, babe?”

“Oh, nothing,” a tightlipped smile, fingers tightening on the edge of the books. “Say, how about we go see a movie this weekend? It’s been a while.”

The upperclassman laughs, “I would, but money’s been a bit tight recently. Maybe some other time.” 

There’s a laugh bubbling behind Izaya’s teeth and a smirk he doesn’t let out. Humans are so fascinating. 

* * *

 

He hasn’t seen Heiwajima all day, but he assumes he can find him being all angsty and brooding on the roof. He opens the door just a crack, and then stops. 

“ _You_ were the one that said he smelled like evil,” Tanaka’s voice rings clearly out over the roof. With all hard surfaces and nothing to absorb the sound, it travels far. Clear enough for Izaya to hear it over by the door. 

“I _know_ but—”

“And you accused him of getting me sick. _On purpose.”_

_“_ He—”

And _now,_ ” Tanaka continues, undaunted, “you two are going to be friends. You didn’t even like him—”

“I still don’t.”

“Then why do you want to be friends with him?” Tanaka pauses, “it’s not that I don’t think more friends isn’t a good thing, but why _him?”_

Shizuo is running a hand through his hair and mumbles something that makes Tanaka sigh and put his face in his hands. 

Interesting. 

Time for a dramatic entrance. Izaya opens the door and they both go quiet to stare at him. That’s not suspicious at all.

“Shizuo-senpai,” Izaya says smoothly, before turning to Tanaka, “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.” 

Tanaka is staring at Izaya intently. Probably trying to determine the source of his sly and cunning and/or evil smell. (He _smells_ like evil. What does evil even smell like? Apparently like strawberry shampoo.)

“This is the guy you think—”

“Yes, I know, I was there,” Heiwajima cuts Tanaka off, gesturing vaguely behind him at Izaya. “This is Orihara Izaya. We’re friends now, or something.” 

Tanaka raises an eyebrow, “Or something.”

“Yeah,” Heiwajima looks somewhere between stubborn and horribly embarrassed. It’s amazing, he wishes he had a camera.  

After a long look at Heiwajima, Tanaka turns his attention to Izaya, “Tanaka Tom. How are you liking your first year at Raijin?”

“Well enough, I suppose.”

“Big change from elementary school, huh?” Tanaka says. Izaya stares at him. Is this true small talk? He hates it. Heiwajima is staring at him. “Who’s your homeroom teacher?” Tanaka says. “I had Yokisho. She’s got a bit of a bad rep, but I really liked her.”

“I see,” Izaya says. 

What a scintillating conversation, he can see why they’re such good friends. He lets silence reign. He finds that humans tend to fill the void for themselves, putting whatever answer suits them in. 

Tanaka starts to shift from foot to foot. 

Heiwajima sits broodingly against the fence running along the edge of the roof. Brooding. Angstily. Izaya’s just glad he’s gotten his moody teenager phase out of the way back when he was six. He’d always been precocious. 

“So, Shizuo,” Tanaka starts. “Any luck with your gang problem?”

Gang problem? Heiwajima’s in a _gang?_ That makes sense, who wouldn’t want that raw power on their side? It’s just. _No one mentioned it._ The state of gossip these days is appalling. Nobody claimed him on the forums, either. 

Heiwajima pulls another lollipop out of somewhere to scowl around. “No. Bastards keep popping out of every corner.”

What?

“You’re in a gang?” Izaya says, and it’s almost a statement for trying to keep the surprise out of his voice. 

“ _No,_ ” Heiwajima says at the same time Tanaka says, “Well…”

“I told you, that’s a fuckin’ dumb idea,” Shizu-chan snarls. 

“It would give you a measure of protection from the other ones,” Tanaka says, mildly, as though they’ve had this conversation 

“But then I’d have to fight _for_ that one.”

Tanaka wants Heiwajima to join a gang? That seems like a(n excellent) terrible idea, no matter how you look at it. (Depends what gang. How you do it.) 

“And they’d probably increase the number of fight they’d have, to win dominance sheerly through Shizu-chan’s physical strength,” Izaya interjects. 

“ _What_ did you call me?”

“Shizuo-senpai, just like we agreed,” Izaya says with a dazzling grin. 

Heiwajima continues to give him a suspicious look. Before asking: “Where’s your lunch, flea?”

“What did you call me?”

“Flea, because you’re small and annoying.”

“That’s rude.” 

“ _You’re_ rude.” 

“Children,” Tanaka says, but he sounds amused. “Shizuo, why don’t you bleach your hair?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“So you stand out,” Tanaka says. 

“That’s the exact opposite of what I want,” Heiwajima complains. 

“Yeah. He just wants to brood in peace. Can’t do that when you look like a delinquent,” Izaya adds helpfully.

“Shut _up,”_ Heiwajima snaps. 

“If you stand out more, it’s easier to identify you, true, but that’s the point. It’s easier to say ‘Look out for the blonde kid’ than ‘Look out for the average looking middle-schooler.’”

Tanaka does have a point. 

“It’s against school rules,” Heiwajima tries. 

“So is being up here,” Tanaka points out. 

“But Shizuo-senpai needs time to brood away from the crush of humanity,” Izaya says helpfully, “he can’t do that anywhere else.”

Also, exactly which teacher was going to tell the student that could swing the soccer net around like it was a baseball bat that he couldn’t do something? If anyone could get away with dying their hair against policy, it was definitely Heiwajima. 

The thing is, it’s not a terrible idea like the last one. 

But he’s already put forward the effort to make Heiwajima a living legend, and while having the bleached hair as a distinguishing characteristic would help, it’d smart a bit for Tanaka to take all the credit.

“I’ll think about it,” Heiwajima says at last. 

“It was just a thought.” 

“Maybe you won’t have to,” Izaya says. 

“I don’t have to _now.”_

“I said I’d protect you from the gangs, senpai. Do you not trust me or something?”

“Of course I don’t trust you. You’re _slimy.”_

“Again with the insults, senpai. You’re going to hurt my feelings if you keep this up.”

“What _feelings?”_

“The ones—”

“Well,” Tanaka says. “I don’t know if I’m more impressed that you’ve gotten Shizuo to talk this much or that you can keep bickering over nothing.”

“I’m just impressive,” Izaya says. 

“Yeah, impressively underhanded.”

“You’ve only known me for two days.”

“I could tell when I first saw you.”

“Ah,” Izaya bats his eyelashes. “Love at first sight. That’s so sweet, senpai!”

“I didn’t…No—”

“It’s okay, senpai. I understand you didn’t mean to let it slip. I’ll ignore it for now,” Izaya says, giving Heiwajima a wink. 

Heiwajima, predictably, snarls. 

“I already have an idea for our date today, you shouldn’t have to take all the burden.”

“What! You shit, I didn’t, don’t. I walk Tom-san home after school.”

“That’s blatant favoritism.” 

“Well, yeah, I like him better!”

“ _Ouch.”_

“It’s fine, Shizuo, I can walk myself home,” Tanaka says, amused. “It sounds like you already have a demand on your time.”

“But—”

“It’s fine, Shizuo,” Tanaka says firmly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Izaya can feel a smile building. It feels sharp and victorious, but his body feels warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> marith wanted to be reminded to include hot pot in their story.  
> also, i am still desperately looking for a beta, if anyone is interested, for this story and another shizaya one. pretty, pretty please?


	7. Chapter 7

****

Shizuo is waiting on the steps for him when he exits the doors. It’s amazing how easily Heiwajima can be bullied into things.

“Took you long enough,” Shizuo says, though Izaya is hardly one of the last ones out. 

“Not all of us can scare our teachers into dismissing us early,” Izaya replies, because Heiwajima’s class is infamous for being able to leave when suspicious groaning noises of protesting metal begin to emanate from Heiwajima’s side of the classroom. 

“I don’t…Well, not on purpose,” Heiwajima says as Izaya laughs. “Shut up.”

“It’s okay, senpai, I still like you,” Izaya says as he leads the way out of the front gates and takes a left, away from his usual train station. 

“Hey, where we going?” Heiwajima asks after a block or two. 

“Nowhere in particular,” Izaya lies, “I’ve just never had the chance to walk around Ikebukuro. It’s odd, spending so much time here and not knowing the area.”

“And you needed me here for that?” 

“Ah, senpai, and you were so gung-ho about protecting me yesterday. What happened?”

“I thought you didn’t need my protection.” Heiwajima sounds irritated. 

“I don’t need it. Maybe I just want your company.”

Heiwajima is silent. A hit was scored, obviously. (Is it wanting him around? Is that it? Is Heiwajima really just lonely?)

Could it really be that simple?

Could Heiwajima really be that simply, painfully human?

“Ah, let’s get something to eat,” Izaya says. “I’m hungry.”

“I told you you should eat lunch,” Heiwajima says, long suffering. 

“But I wasn’t hungry  _ then. _ ” 

“Let’s go to the fast food place we went yesterday.” 

“No, I want real food.” 

“That  _ is _ real food.”

Izaya pats Heiwajima’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you think so.”

It’s one more turn and then they’re on a fairly large intersection, busy and lively, when—

“Hey! You!”

There it is. 

He’s older than Izaya expected, though not by much, and is wearing a bright red shirt to indicate his inclusion in the Blood Reds. 

“You’re the brat that put Takeshiro in the hospital!”

More men dressed in red start to emerge from the surrounding crowd, all around the two of them.

“Do we need to teach you a lesson, brat? Do you think a broken arm will suffice? Two? What about your friend?”

What many don’t realize is that three is about the maximum number of people that can attack a single person at once, and even then feet and arms get tangled in the mix. 

Clearly, nobody told the Blood Reds anything, because they converge as one unit on the two of them. 

Shizuo’s teeth are grinding hard enough that Izaya can hear it standing next to him. 

It’s with a growl of wordless rage that Shizuo picks up the first attacker and uses him as a club to smack the next three before just kicking the next few like they’re soccer balls. 

Izaya, for his part, simply dodges those that come toward him. It’s pretty easy; their movements are telegraphed before they even swing-- it’s just a matter of timing. Compared to dodging Heiwajima’s, it’s easy, almost boring. None of them move as fast as he does. As wildly as he does. 

It’s almost boring, the way he easily moves to the edges of the gathered crowd, blending in. It’s easy with so many people and, more importantly, so many cellphones. Taking pictures, recording videos. It’ll be everywhere by the time he goes home, all over the forums. 

There’s a measure of unpredictability in how it’ll be received that can only be mitigated so much, no matter the groundwork Izaya set up, but he’s pretty confident that he can sway the majority of the tide in his favor. Who wouldn’t want to leave Heiwajima alone after this?

Heiwajima is so beautiful when he fights, it’s almost a shame he has to share. It’s graceless and unpredictable; his lack of training shines with each sloppy punch, but he flows from one move to the other, through one opponent to the next, with the natural power of a roaring waterfall until there’s no one left standing. 

Well, in Izaya’s eyes. Heiwajima knocks the last red-clad figure down and faces Izaya. Is it an animal-like response to the red shirt he wears under his jacket? Heiwajima stalks closer.

“Izaya-kun!” it’s almost melodic, sing-song. And so full of danger. 

Izaya dodges the first punches, one, two, with barely a thought. 

“Ah, Shizu-chan, what’s this for?”

“You did this!”

“Ah,” Izaya says. 

He takes off running. He can tell by the heavy footsteps that Heiwajima gives chase; around the corner, up the alley. He wasn’t lying-- he really doesn’t know the area. He’s taking turns entirely at random. It’s not long before he reaches a dead end, wall looming closer. 

It’s the footsteps behind him, it’s the adrenaline, it’s his own athletic ability. Whatever it is, it has him using his momentum to plant a foot on the wall and jump, arms reaching for the ledge of the roof above him.

It’s a miracle he reaches; sheer adrenaline pulls his body up onto the roof. Heiwajima dashes into the alleyway, panting, stopping short when he sees Izaya a good twelve feet above the ground. 

“Izaya-kun!” he bellows. 

“Now, now, Shizu-chan. Can’t we talk about this?”

“You set me up!”

Izaya thinks about denying it. He has logic on his side. The sheer improbability of it all. But that only works if the other person is willing to listen to reason. 

“You have good instincts,” he says instead. 

“Damn you, you bastard! Why?!”

“Don’t you want protection from the gangs?” 

“How does setting me up count as protection?! You idiot, that’s the exact opposite of what I want!”

“Sure, but you weren’t exactly well publicized, senpai.” 

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Nobody knew to avoid you, because they hadn’t seen what you were capable of.”

“And how has that changed?”

“Did you see all the people?” Izaya asks, spreading his arms wide to indicate the city at large.

“Great, collateral damage. That’s  _ exactly _ what I want.”

“Tch, no. People carry cell phones these days, senpai. Cameras. I have no doubt at least one video will be circulating the internet by tonight.”

“And how will they know it was me? How can you be sure that others won’t want to test themselves against me?”

“I’ll take care of the first part, but I suspect that you’ll be fighting the other battle for the rest of your life.”

Heiwajima shuffles his feet, looks down, rubs the back of his neck, and looks back up at Izaya. 

“This is not how friends treat friends.”

“I thought you said friends help each other out, expecting nothing in return?”

“Sure, but they  _ don’t manipulate them into gang fights.  _ In fact, it’s considered rude to manipulate your friends  _ at all. _ ”

“But it’ll work. And you wouldn’t have agreed to it otherwise.”

Heiwajima runs his hands through his hair. “That’s a sure sign that you shouldn’t manipulate someone to do something, if they wouldn’t want to do it.” 

“But it didn’t hurt anybody.” Izaya pauses, “well. Not anybody  _ important. _ ” 

“Oh my god.” 

“What?”

“You’re so fucked up. You legitimately think you did me a favor.”

Izaya scowls. “I did. You wanted the gangs to leave you alone, I’m ensuring the gangs leave you alone.”

Heiwajima is gaping up at him. “Hey, Izaya-kun.”

“What?”

“Are you afraid of me?”

What kind of question is that? “Why would I be afraid of you? You’re not very scary, senpai.”

Izaya thinks he hears Heiwajima mutter something that sounds like  _ of fucking course.  _ But he can’t be sure, it’s hard to tell over the ambient sounds of the city.

“You actually meant well. I guess I can forgive you once, but for fuck’s sake,  _ don’t do it again.”  _

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Good instincts?”

A snort. 

“Can you get down from there?” Heiwajima asks, looking up, amusement clear in his voice.

Izaya looks down at the drop. He’s not scared of heights, but the concrete at the bottom doesn’t look particularly soft or forgiving.

“Of course I can.”

“I can catch you,” Heiwajima says, holding out his arms. Because entrusting someone who literally just chased you through the city to catch you, spine down towards nice, soft concrete, is definitely an intelligent thing to do. 

Shit, is this a trust exercise? Well, yes. Would Heiwajima hold it against him if he doesn’t? Maybe. Shit. He’s gonna have to do it. Izaya tosses his bag down first. 

“If you drop me, just remember that I want lilies at my funeral. No cheap carnations.” 

Heiwajima rolls his eyes. “I’m not gonna drop you. Now hurry up, I have to piss.” 

“Charming.” 

And Izaya jumps. 

It’s not a long fall, but time seems to dilate and expand on the way down. He has time to contemplate the sheer stupidity of what he’s doing, heading blindly down to the ground, when he meets resistance and instead is looking into the face of Heiwajima Shizuo. 

He’s prettier than Izaya remembers. And are those flecks of gold near the irises of his eyes? He’s never noticed. 

Heiwajima is staring back. “Told you I wouldn’t drop you.” 

Izaya puts on his best, wide, dazzling grin. “My hero!” He’d throw his arms around Heiwajima’s neck for emphasis if one wasn’t pinned between his body and Heiwajima’s. It’s more comfortable that Izaya would have thought. Warm. 

Seconds tick by, longer than they should be.

“You can put me down now, senpai.”

“Oh, right,” Heiwajima says, setting him roughly down on his feet as he clears his throat. “So, you were hungry? I think there’s a new sushi place around here somewhere.” And he walks out the alley. 

“What, that’s it?”

Heiwajima stops and looks over his shoulder, this movement as exaggerated as all his others. “Huh?”

“I had you attacked by a gang, and that’s it? I say sorry and that’s it? All done, swept under the rug?”

“You didn’t say sorry, you apologized. You’re not gonna do it again.”

Izaya feels a laugh bubbling up from the pits of his stomach and he can’t stop it. It bursts out, almost explosive. He’s helpless to stop it once it starts. He’s clutching his stomach, it hurts. It seems to go on forever but it eventually splutters to a stop. 

“You done? I still gotta piss.”

“You just said you didn’t believe me. And now you’re saying you will? Which is it?”

Heiwajima sighs. “You’re gonna try again, because you’re fucked up. But you’re also gonna realize that the best way to get me to do something is to  _ just ask. _ Like normal people do.” Heiwajima pauses. “No, wait. That wouldn’t have occurred to you. Hey, Izaya-kun. Just ask next time, yeah? Saves us both time and effort. Now come  _ on.  _ I have to  _ pee.” _

Izaya stares blankly at Heiwajima, not quite sure how to react to that. Should he feel insulted? He doesn’t. He just feels a little… blank. 

And hungry. 

“What was that you said about sushi?”

 

When Izaya gets home, he hops on the forums to take care of any extraneous damage control. He has to make sure his slap-dash PR campaign is going to plan. 

For the most part, it is. There’s at least seven different videos of Heiwajima from different angles, throwing grown men around like they weigh no more than kittens. 

But. 

_ Storyko 20xx.5.6 16:13:45>>>lol he didn’t put up as much resistance as I thought  _

_ LordOfDarkness 20xx.5.6 16:14:01>>> pfft and they all made him up to be so much more than he was! _

There aren’t many of those, all dated before the videos of Heiwajima went up, all focused in the area of the internet where the burgeoning Blue Squares live.

(They’re almost nobodies, but if they play their cards right, they might be able to take advantage of the power vacuum left by the dying Green Snakes.)

Eh, it’s not important. Color gangs taking a hit on some hapless idiot aren’t new. He orchestrated one just this afternoon. 

Kumai throw themselves on to his back. “Izu-nii, food!”

“We couldn’t go to the grocery store today with the way you two were screaming. So it’s cup noodles for dinner tonight!”

“Noooooo!”

Honestly, he  _ hates  _ cup noodles. He can feel the preservatives pickling his insides with every single bite. Maybe, when he dies, they shouldn’t even bother embalming him. Just let the cup noodles preserve his organs. It’s amazing that bodies still rot in this day and age. 

He turns to dump Kumai onto the floor so he can stand, but they just cling tighter to his shirt.

“Cake!”

Izaya turns to look at one of the walls. There’s still chocolate icing staining them at random intervals. 

“Um, no. How about delivery instead?”

 

Izaya’s alarm goes off at least ten times louder than usual. He winches his eyes open slowly. 

It’s fine, nothing a cup of coffee can’t fix. 

The twins are already up when he goes to wake them, attempting a two-man gymnastics feat out of their sleeping cage. They’d probably succeed, too, if he left them to it. He’s half tempted, with his arms aching from yesterday’s pull up on the roof. He thought he was more in shape, but there’s nothing like a quick run around the city to prove you wrong. 

Today, they fight him every step of the way. From putting the shirts on to shoes. They scream as he searches the cabinets for a can of instant coffee, finding one hiding in the very back corner. It expired two months ago, but he prepares it anyway because the drag on his limbs says he’s going to need all the help he can get. 

The coffee is bitter, which is fine, but he can feel the undiluted acid eating through his esophagus on the way down. 

He’s halfway to the bus station when he can feel his arms going from protesting to outright rebellion, managing to set the twins down before he just drops them. 

“Izu-nii,  _ up,” _ one demands, stretching her arms up, grabbing for him. 

“Not today. Today, you walk.”

“Izu-nii,  _ up,” _ she demands again, voice starting to go high and shrill. 

“No,” he says, grabbing for one hand from each, even though he has to stoop over to not dislocate their arms. 

“ _ No, up _ ,” she demands again, and rips her hand away from his, throws herself onto the ground, and starts to  _ scream. _

It’s like nails on a chalkboard, forks on plates, and a thousand and one other unpleasant sounds that scraped his eardrums and echoed in his head until the headache hiding at his temples explodes to encompass his entire body.

The weight of the stares of passersby are heavy and judging, though not a single one stop to help.

The other twin stares up at him impassively, ignoring the cries of her sister like he wishes he could. Just leave her there on the middle of the sidewalk, screaming. 

Actually, he doesn’t see a good reason why he shouldn’t. He can’t carry her. Not sure if he can drag her, either. 

So he starts to walk, the hand of one twin small and delicate in his, and the shrieks of the other grating and growing quieter with each step.

“Izu-nii!” he hears from behind him, shrill and desperate. He doesn’t turn. He just keeps walking. (If he’s learned anything from his parents, it’s how to leave a child behind.)

Small, pattering steps sound from behind him, slowly getting louder. A warm weight attaches itself to his leg, sobbing in great big hiccups. “Izu-nii, no,” it says pathetically as her sister pats her head. 

He disentangles the twin from his leg and takes her hand. She goes willingly all the way to the nursery, silent.

He drops the twins off with little issue, one clinging to the other, staring after him with mournful eyes. 

He thinks maybe it should spark some brotherly instinct in him, like it does in all the manga and books, but he just feels pointedly blank, too tired to feel anything but muted irritation.

His head feels like it weighs a metric fuckton and he finds himself struggling to keep it up despite the acidic burn of coffee in his stomach.

“Excuse me,” says an old woman on the train, tapping his shoulder. “I think this is your stop.”

Izaya looks around. “So it is. Thank you.”

It’s a laborious slug to campus but he does make it. Crap, he really needs to start going to the gym if a quick run leaves him this drained. 

“IZAYA-KUN.”

Somebody’s excited to see him.

If he was in any other state, any other condition, he could have dodged. But his head is barely connected to his body, and his legs aren’t responding. As it is, all he can do is watch as Heiwajima comes closer, his fist swinging out. He takes the punch square in the face. The force of it knocks him back onto the ground.

Staring up at the sky, he tries to think of what he might have done, but his head is filled with cotton and his jaw was almost disconnected from his body and  _ thinking  _ just isn’t happening. His view of the sky is replaced by the snarling face of Heiwajima. “You  _ shit. _ Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

“What are you talking about?” he spits, because now his entire freaking head is a ball of hurt.

“Tom-san, he’s in the  _ hospital.  _ You had him beaten, you shit.”

Oh,  _ fuck.  _

Heiwajima’s gang problem. He always walked Tanaka home, that’s when he would have been fighting the gangs. Not on school property, no. He’d be expelled faster than you could say ‘Shizu-chan.’ 

The forum posts. Didn’t put up as much of a fight as expected. 

Heiwajima doesn’t live in the pitiful Blue Square territory, but  _ Tanaka  _ might.

Underlings watching a route, well-known. Nobody who’s faced Heiwajima wants to again, so fresh faces. Middle schooler wearing the right uniform walks by. Alone. 

He agitated the forum pool without prejudice, shaking the beehive and selecting the angriest from the nest, working them until they would be in public when he needed them. 

But he miscalculated. He forgot the others. 

No, no. That’s just not like him. He accounts for all variables. He doesn’t forget. He did watch the Blue Squares forum like he did everything else. He  _ knew _ . He just didn’t care. 

He went through with it anyway, separated the two of them.

“You  _ didn’t  _ know,” Heiwajima says, pulling him roughly to his feet. The world swings wildly for a moment with the sudden change in perception. “Jesus.”

“No, no. I knew,” Izaya repeats dully. His jaw aches with the effort. He’s shocked it’s not broken. It might be. What do broken jaws feel like?

“Liar,” Heiwajima says. 

A surge of irritation. Who is Heiwajima to tell him what he did and didn’t intend? What does he know? Who is he to tell him what he does and doesn’t know?

“Tom-san says he’s fine, but you’re going to have to apologize. I don’t know how you did it, but you better not do it again. Messing with gangs is dangerous.”

“Sage advice, senpai. I’ll take it to heart.” 

Heiwajima squints at him. “You look like shit.”

“I just got punched in the face. I  _ feel  _ like shit.”

“Let’s take you to the nurse’s office,” Heiwajima says, roughly grabbing Izaya’s arm. “They can get you some raw meat or whatever to put on your jaw.” 

“Why would the nurse’s office have raw meat?”

“Because it’s cold, I dunno. It’s what my mom puts on my bruises.”

“Sounds like witchcraft, there’s no way that works better than an ice pack. The bacteria alone—”

“Whatever. It works.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks a million to max, who beta'd this and spent three hours doing so and is welcome to my firstborn child if they want it


	8. Chapter 8

It becomes apparent within about two seconds that the nurse at Raijin  _ hates  _ Heiwajima. 

“Oh, you poor thing, what happened?” she asks, fluttering around Izaya while shooting poisonous looks at Heiwajima. It’s so refreshing. 

“I-”

“I fell down the stairs out front,” Izaya says, rubbing the back of his neck, putting on his best embarrassed look. 

The nurse looks conflicted. “Are you sure? You know, if anyone hurts you, you can tell me,” she says, casting unsubtle looks at Heiwajima.

“I’m sure. I was just clumsy.” He gives her a small, embarrassed smile.

“All right, if you’re  _ sure _ . I’ll get you an icepack,” and she bustles to the other room. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Heiwajima says. 

“I do,” Izaya says, because he can think of consequences, even if Heiwajima can’t.

The nurse returns with both an ice pack and a thermometer, which she sticks in Izaya’s mouth without warning, making him gag a little. 

“It’s standard procedure,” she explains. “Even if you might not need it.” She hands him the ice pack and a wad of paper towels. “You might want to visit a dentist, though. Taking a blow to the jaw can break teeth, even kill them if you’re not careful. Do you have any blood in your mouth? If you do, you might have broken your jaw. That can be fatal, you know.” The nurse starts casting side-eyes at Heiwajima again, who’s busy trying to not look guilty in the corner of the room. She grips the sides of Izaya’s jaw, pressing in uncomfortably, then removes the thermometer, eyebrows raised. “I don’t think you need to worry about a broken jaw, but you are running a fever. I’m afraid I’m going to have to send you home.”

She moves over to the desk, pulling out a pad of paper and a handset. “Your temperature’s rather high, it’d make me feel better if one of your parents came to pick you up. We have two numbers listed, which do you want me to call?”

Shit, what numbers did he put? He’s sure at least one of them is his cell phone, that’s no good. 

“Ah, it’s fine, I naturally run a high temperature. I can get through the day. I feel fine.”

“Are you sure?”

Yes, he’s fucking sure. He wouldn’t have said it otherwise. 

“Oh, of course.” 

“Take this then,” she says, handing him a face mask. “It’s no good if you go about getting others sick.” 

“Thanks.”

Izaya hops off the bed and heads out the door, Heiwajima trailing at his heels.

“You should go to your class. You’re gonna be late.” 

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see you at lunch.” Heiwajima peels off. 

Izaya goes to his own class, pausing at the door. Heiwajima has an impressive punch; he can already feel the bruise that’s starting to form. Thank goodness for the face mask. He’s not sure just how much of the bruise it covers, but it’s better than nothing. 

The whispers start as soon as he enters the room and the teacher waves him to his seat. 

His head aches and his jaw smarts and his body feels like it’s made of cast iron and it’s the start to a long, long day.

 

The stairs to the roof are nearly an insurmountable obstacle, and he considers not going. But he’s already put so much work into this whole ‘friendship’ gig to throw it all off just because he’s tragically out of shape.

Heiwajima is curled into a small ball against the fence meant to prevent anyone from getting off the building too quickly. 

He glances up when Izaya pushes the door open and walks over, eyes zeroing in on his jaw, where a truly spectacular purple bruise has blossomed during the hours since the beginning of school. It’s very impressive and clearly not the product of falling down a set of stairs. 

“I. I got you lunch,” Heiwajima says, uncurling from his ball long enough to hand over a sandwich and a can of tea, “since, you know, you never eat.” 

“Thanks, senpai. But I’m not hungry.”

“You should eat anyway.”

“Well, I would,” Izaya says, “but my jaw hurts, and that makes eating somewhat hard.” 

Heiwajima looks uncomfortable. “At least drink the tea.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I could get you a milkshake after school on our way to see Tom-san. You could at least eat that.” 

“There are so many things wrong with that sentence I don’t even know where to start.” 

“Well, of course you’re going to go see Tom-san and apologize. It’s only right,” Heiwajima says. 

“I did do it, I didn’t do it. You’re sending me mixed signals here. Why do you even think I’m responsible, huh? Do you know how unlikely that is?” 

Heiwajima scowls. “I  _ know  _ you did it. You  _ admitted  _ to doing it.” 

“No,” Izaya corrects, “I said I  _ knew. _ ”

“I know you did it,” says Heiwajima as if that makes any sort of logical sense. 

Izaya throws his hands up in the air and glances at the sky to see if a kind god is willing to hand down some answers. No such luck. 

“You only want to buy me a milkshake so you can drink two without looking like a glutton.” 

“No, it’s so you can actually eat something.” 

“I wouldn’t have trouble eating if you hadn’t punched me in the jaw.” 

Heiwajima narrows his eyes, “You deserved it.” 

“Friends don’t punch friends,” Izaya says, sing-song and mocking. 

“They do when they deserve it.”

“Didn’t anyone teach you to use your words?”

Heiwajima snorts, “If words had any effect on you, I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“That makes no sense.” 

“Your face makes no sense.”

“Wow, excellent comeback, senpai. I can really feel your wit shining through.” 

“Shut  _ up, _ flea.” That sounds like an excellent idea. He wants to just lean his aching head back against the fence, but…

“That’s not a good pet name at all,” Izaya complains, “they’re supposed to be cute.”

“Good thing it’s not a pet name. It’s an insult.”

“You’re so cruel to me.”

“You deserve it. You literally set gangs on your only friends.”

Izaya makes a face. 

“Yes, Izaya. Tom-san is your friend.”

Izaya decides not to argue and let Heiwajima live in his cute fantasy world. It sounds nice there. 

“We never did finish our game,” Heiwajima says. 

Huh? Izaya doesn’t want to play whatever stupid game Heiwajima’s cooked up. He wants to nap. (And he’d kill for that right. Kidding. Mostly.)

“What are you talking about?”

“The question game. I ask a question, you ask a question. And we answer honestly.”

“Sounds like that kind of game has no end,” Izaya says. “We could play until the end of time.” 

Heiwajima pulls out a lollipop. “Good. Then we’ll always have something to talk about.”

“Alright. Question, what’s with all those lollipops?”

Heiwajima shrugs. “I dunno. My brother gave them to me, says they make me calmer. I just like the way they taste. My turn. Did you mean to have Tom-san beaten?”

Is that what passes for subtlety and manipulation in Heiwajima’s mind? Izaya opens his mouth to answer, but Heiwajima cuts him off. 

“Tit-for-tat. Quid pro quo. You have to answer honestly.”

Izaya closes his mouth. And thinks. It’s kind of hard, with his head full of cotton and the gears churning so slowly. Did he  _ mean  _ to have Tom beaten? He ignores the part of him that spits out the reflexive yes, of course he did. He didn’t mean to. But he’s not sorry it happened. But that’s not what Heiwajima asked. 

“No,” Izaya says at last. “I didn’t.” 

He sits down next to Heiwajima and leans back against the fence, closing his eyes and hoping against all hope Heiwajima gets the hint. 

He does fall blessedly silent, and for a moment, Izaya understands why Heiwajima likes the roof so much. The sun on his face is warm and soothing, the breeze still gentle, and it’s nice and silent after the crush of humanity.

He’s in the soft, midway point between sleep and awareness when he feels a something poking the side of his face. He cracks open a single eye to find Heiwajima looking at him with an intense look of concentration on his face, quickly changing quickly to guilt. 

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Real convincing, senpai. It’s not polite to take advantage of someone while they’re sleeping.”

“I wasn’t—”

“It’s okay, senpai,” Izaya says with an obnoxious wink, “I can make a special exception for  _ you.” _

_ “ _ Oh my god,” Heiwajima says. “I was gonna let you sleep on my shoulder, but you know what? Never mind.” 

“Do you grope everybody in their sleep, or am I just special?” 

“Shut up!”

Then lunch ends and there’s no more time to make poor, poor Shizu-chan turn that interesting shade of pink. 

  
  


Heiwajima is sitting on the steps when he leaves after school. 

“Well, I was  _ going  _ to make you apologize to Tom-san, but you look like shit.”

“Thanks, senpai. You always know what I want to hear.”

“It’s not my fault the truth hurts.” 

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Shizuo-senpai.”

“Yup,” Heiwajima says. Then he follows Izaya out the gates and to the train station. 

“I said I’ll see you tomorrow,” Izaya says, exasperated. 

“You will,” Heiwajima agrees.

“That’s generally the socially accepted way of saying goodbye,” Izaya explains slowly. 

“I know.” 

“Then why are you following me?” Izaya says as they get on the train that goes the exact opposite direction of where Heiwajima lives. 

“Because you look like death.”

“This is what’s called ‘stalking,’ senpai. It’s considered very rude and is frowned upon.” 

“No, this is called making sure you don’t collapse and crack your head open on the pavement. It’s a way of showing friendship that’s at least ten times better then sending gangs after someone.” 

“I thought you were mad at me,” Izaya changes the subject. 

“Doesn’t mean I want you dead.” 

“How tenderhearted of you, senpai.” 

“Shut up.”

Izaya gets off at the stop where he usually picks the twins up, and Heiwajima follows him off the train. It’s not like he’s trying to keep his sisters  _ secret,  _ it’s just that Heiwajima doesn’t really need to know, now, does he? Information is valuable. Just because other people like to scream intimate details about their life to the entire world doesn’t mean he has to. 

“Well, it’s been a pleasure, senpai, but I’m certain I can find my way home from here.”

Heiwajima gives him a suspicious look. “This is a shopping plaza.”

“Well-spotted. What gave it away?

Heiwajima ignores him. “There’s no way you live here.”

“I dunno. I think I could make a decent living in the supermarket if I put my mind to it. They sell mattresses.” 

“Don’t be a shit.”

“I’m not.” 

“Did you take me here just to throw me off?”

“Believe it or not, senpai, I do have motives outside of you. Maybe I need to go grocery shopping, how’s that?”

“That smells like a lie.”

Izaya lifts an eyebrow. “What does a lie smell like? Does it smell like evil?”

Heiwajima stares steadily at him. “Don’t mock me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Then why are we here?”

“I need to pick my sisters up from nursery.”

“You have sisters? Why didn’t you just say that?” Heiwajima stalks forward, and Izaya follows in his wake. 

“Because it’s none of your business?”

“I have a brother,” Heiwajima offers. “See, now we’re even.”

“But I don’t care that you have a brother,” Izaya says. 

“Friends care about each other’s lives.”

“Is this a part of the dumb game you wanted to play?”

“It’s not dumb,” Heiwajima says. “It’s for you. You of the quid pro quo.”

Izaya smirks, “You had to look that up, didn’t you? That’s why you want to use it so much now.”

“Shut up. My question: why do you not want me to know about your family?”

Shitty stupid perceptive Shizu-chan.

“Because it’s none of your business. Question: why do you want to know about my family?”

“Because you’re trying to hide it.”

“I’m not  _ trying  _ to hide anything,” Izaya counters. “I just have a family. We’re pretty normal, truth be told. It’s yours that’s clearly the problem, I heard from an old classmate of yours that your parents are abusive.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, they said you came in everyday with some new injury.” Izaya snaps his fingers. “I get it now, you’re the strong, silent type with the mysterious past. That’s why you’re trying to take care of me, to recreate the love you never had as a child.” 

“What?! No, my parents aren’t—”

“It’s okay, senpai. I’ll still like you no matter what. You can tell me,” Izaya says, patting Heiwajima’s arm reassuringly. 

“My parents aren’t abusive!” Heiwajima yells, attracting a few stares, making his cheeks go red.

“It’s all right. Now that I know where your nurturing instincts come from, it all makes sense.”

“I. No, I caused those injuries. I did that myself.” 

“Self-harm isn’t good, Shizu-chan. But it does add to your strong, silent troubled image.” Izaya slaps a hand to his chest, “the strong, yet troubled, boy, beloved by all but himself. Wrestling with his self hatred, he turns to his only outlet.”

“No. It’s not like that at all.” 

“Oh no, Shizu-chan. It’s  _ exactly  _ like that.” 

“It’s just that my body couldn’t always take my strength, that’s all.”

“That’s all,” Izaya says, mocking. 

“It  _ is.” _

“Exactly how strong are you, anyway?”

Heiwajima shrugs. “Strong.” 

“Descriptive.”

Heiwajima spreads his hands helplessly. “It’s all I got.”

They’re it front of the nursery by then, and Izaya pushes open the front door.

“Oh! Orihara-san,” one of the workers greets him. “Here for your sisters?”

“Yup. How’ve they been today?” he asks with a smile that’s hidden by the mask.

“Oh, one’s been fine, but the other is in quite the mood. Did something happen at home?” 

Izaya’s glad he has the mask on to hide his purple jaw when he says: “Nothing I can think of.”

“I’ll go get them now,” the worker says, and bustles into the back, leaving Izaya standing with Heiwajima in the front room. She’s back not a moment later, one twin already trying to leap out of her arms to reach Izaya, the other glaring daggers. It’s an impressively venomous look on a toddler. 

“Here we are!” the worker trills. “Have a nice day!”

“Uh-huh,” Izaya says. He reaches a hand out to each twin, but Heiwajima scoops them both up before he can and walks out the door. 

Huh. Whatever. 

“Kidnapping my sisters now, huh? Jokes on you, you can keep them.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I’m sure your mom will notice something’s up when you get home. And then you’ll regret it.” 

There’s something frozen in Izaya’s chest, but he smiles around it. “Oh, no. Not for several hours.” Several hundred is still several. “See, my parents trust me to watch small children.”

“My parents trust me with my brother,” Heiwajima protests. 

“Then where is he now?”

“I dunno, probably at home. But they trust me enough to leave him with me this weekend.”

Izaya claps. “Big steps for you, Shizu-chan.”

“Shut up, flea.”

They bicker the whole bus ride, until Izaya’s voice doesn’t sound a thing like him anymore, rough and unused. But he stays awake, a constant battle with the lulling swaying. Before he knows it, they’re in front of his front door and he’s smoothly reaching for his key, so much easier when someone else is carrying the twins.

“Well, it’s been a blast, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, standing in the doorway, arm stretched across to the door jamb. It’s as clear as he can make it that he doesn’t want Heiwajima in the house, but he’s not sure how effective that would be, considering how Heiwajima got here in the first place.

“Yeah, sure. Remember, you’re gonna go apologize to Tom-san tomorrow, whether you like it or not.” 

Izaya waves a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. Looking forward to it.”

“See you tomorrow then?”

“Bye.”

It’s supremely satisfying to shut the door in Heiwajima’s face. 

Tiredness hit him like a freaking semi, and he face plants onto the couch for a quick nap before he goes to buy dinner. One twin comes over and slaps his face until he turns on the TV, the news popping up to another stabbing victim. He supposes blood sells, then he supposes nothing, falling asleep so quickly he doesn’t even catch the headline. 

He awakens not to long shadows, but to no shadows at all, the sun long past the horizon. The TV is the only source of illumination in the room, casting eerie shadows over the twins in a small huddle on the living room floor. 

He fishes his phone out of his pocket. It’s a quarter past ten. Whoops. Well, if they’re sleeping, they’re sleeping. No point in trying to feed them now. He scoops them up even as his body protests, dumping them in a crib before collapsing on his own bed. He doesn’t even remember his head hitting the pillow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to Max, who didn't want my firstborn for some reason. r00d.


	9. Chapter 9

There’s a faint  _ thud-thud  _ echoing through the house, blending with sad, mewling cries. It’s the combination that finally wakes him up, cracking blurry eyes open reluctantly. Head like dead weight off the pillow. 

It takes a moment, but he identifies the sound as someone pounding on the door. What, at this hour? It’s only… _ shit.  _ Noon.

He swore he set his alarm last night, and if anything, the twins should have woken him. 

But he can barely hear muffled sobs from down the hall. 

A splintering sound echoes through the house. Shit, they’re being robbed. Ha, jokes on them. They don’t have anything worth stealing. Unless you’re really into cup noodles.

“Izaya-kun, I know you’re in here!”

What the fuck. Is that Heiwajima?

Izaya gets out of bed, landing heavily on his feet. He wobbles a bit, world spinning dizzily, before it steadies, and rushes to the top of the stairs. 

From there, he can see Heiwajima standing in the doorway, detached doorknob and part of the door dangling in his hand. Heiwajima looks up, and Izaya becomes painfully aware of what he must look like. 

He’s still wearing his clothes from yesterday. He’s unshowered, hair unbrushed. Soft cries still echo throughout the house. There’s still chocolate at knee level from the cake the twins ate two nights ago.

“Heiwajima,” Izaya says, and his voice doesn’t sound anything like him, dry and rough and cracking. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought you were avoiding having to go see Tom-san,” Heiwajima says, dully. 

Silence prevails, only made more awkward by the soft cries of the twins. 

“I’m not,” Izaya says eventually. “So you can go now.” 

“Is that the twins?” Heiwajima says, “why are they crying?”

“I said  _ go, _ ” Izaya says, as Heiwajima attempts to shut the door behind him, only to realize he’s holding the door handle.

“Your door is broken.”

“Yeah, thanks for that.” 

Heiwajima shrugs and sets the doorknob down and starts to climb up the stairs. 

“Didn’t I tell you to leave?”

“Uh-huh,” Heiwajima says, drawing level with Izaya on the stairs. “Didn’t you tell me your parents would be coming home?”

“They will be,” Izaya says. Heiwajima raises a single eyebrow. “Eventually.” 

Heiwajima continues to stare at him in silence.

“Let me shower and I’ll go with you to the hospital, alright?” 

“What about your sisters?”

Izaya runs a hand through his hair, wincing when it comes back greasy. 

“They’ll have to come too, I guess.”

“Why are they crying?”

“I don’t  _ know.  _ I’m standing here with  _ you.  _ I’m not omnipotent.” 

“Then go check on them,” Heiwajima says. 

“I was going to, but some dumbass  _ broke down my door. _ ”

“How about you go shower,” Heiwajima says slowly. “And I’ll go check on the twins.” 

“Do you even know what to do with toddlers?” 

“I have a younger brother, I’m not a total dumbass. Go change, you’ll feel better.” 

Izaya drags both his hands down his face, wincing when he presses too hard on his jaw. 

“Fine. Fine. Diapers are in the dresser.”

Izaya goes to the bathroom and shuts the door roughly behind him. He can’t hear the twins over the sound of the water. Can’t hear anything, really. He doesn’t realize how disgusting he felt until he feels clean, steam clearing his head a little.

But with the clarity comes dilemma. Heiwajima being here is not good in a way he can’t describe, something that churns in his gut and makes him want to boot Heiwajima out the door and tell him to never come back. (Actually, maybe  _ he  _ should bolt out the door and never come back. To hell with the twins. Just,  _ go. _ ) 

Logically, he knows that Heiwajima is unlikely to tell anyone about the fact that his parents just aren’t here, even if he does figure it out. He can tell them they’re on an extended business trip, which isn’t wrong. 

There’s no good reason for his heart to feel like it’s beating too fast, for him to feel so disjointed and disconnected and out of sorts. 

He turns off the shower, the steam starting to make it a little too hard to breathe. 

He wraps a towel around his waist and leaves the bathroom to go find a pair of pants before Heiwajima sees him, when he stops dead in the hallway. 

Echoing through the hallway are the sounds of baby laughter, joyful and bubbling. 

He can’t remember ever hearing his sisters laugh like that. Figures that Heiwajima could coax them into turning against him, ungrateful shits. 

He tracks down pants and goes into the twins room to see Heiwajima sitting on the floor, blowing raspberries into Mairu’s stomach as she shrieks in delight while Kururi uses his back as a rock wall to climb on to his shoulder, using his hair as hand-holds. To Heiwajima’s credit, he doesn’t even flinch, just grabs Kururi and blows into her stomach next, while Mairu climbs into his lap. 

Heiwajima catches Izaya standing in the door. “Hey, I think these two could really use a bath. Where do you keep your bath stuff?” 

“I’ll do it.” 

“It’s easier with two people—hey!” Mairu succeeds in climbing on top of Heiwajima’s head and tumbles forward, but Heiwajima catches her in one hand as she shrieks in delight. 

And that’s how he finds himself sitting on the toilet as he watches Heiwajima create beards out of bubbles as his sisters giggle and splash and don’t piss in the water or soak the bathroom or generally be the little hell spawn he knows they are. 

“Have you had lunch yet?” Heiwajima asks as he rinses the soap from Kururi’s hair. She splashes playfully in the water instead of screaming bloody murder like she usually does. 

“Nope.” 

“I can make you something.”

“We’ve got cup noodles.” 

“I’m not so bad at cooking.” 

“That’s nice, but we’ve only got cup noodles. And some cheerios, but those are probably stale by now.”

Heiwajima snorts, “You’ve got to have more food than that.” 

“You’re welcome to look if it makes you feel better, senpai.”

Heiwajima lifts the twins out the bath, and they don’t thrash and wiggle like little eels and try their damndest to run around the house wet and naked. Instead, they submit to being wrapped in towels and rubbed with only minimal giggling. 

“I’ll go look and you get them dressed.”

The niggling, uncomfortable feeling is back. Except, it’s less niggling and more burning and feels a lot like anger.

It’s a matter of minutes to get the twins dressed and hair brushed, even though they seem to have emerged from their Heiwajima-incited stupor and try to hit him every time he tries to put an article of clothing on them.

He comes down the stairs to see all the kitchen cabinet doors flung wide open and gaping, and Heiwajima standing in front of the fridge. 

“You have no food.”

“We have cup noodles.”

“You don’t even have milk,” Heiwajima sounds disgusted, like Izaya had just told him that they all actually just shit in the corner of the kitchen. 

“Of course we don’t have milk. It’s disgusting.” 

“It’s a pretty basic ingredient.”

“Nobody asked you to come here and judge how I live.”

“I’m just trying to help.” 

“I didn’t ask for your help. I don’t want or need it, either,” and he just can’t stop the words now, “I certainly didn’t ask for you to break my fucking door and invite yourself in and bathe my sisters and raid my kitchen.” 

“You need  _ help, _ ” Heiwajima says, the handle to the fridge door crumpling under his grip. 

“I  _ don’t.  _ I’m managing  _ just fine.  _ I didn’t ask you to be here, I don’t  _ want you here.” _

_ “ _ Clearly,” Heiwajima says, sarcasm heavy in his voice. “I’ll just go then, since you don’t need any help.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you to do this  _ entire time, _ ” Izaya spits between clenched teeth. 

“Fine! I’m going!” Heiwajima stalks to the front door and shoves it open, bending the hinges back the wrong way until they simply snap, leaving the door hanging precariously in the frame as Heiwajima stalks away. 

“Big help, senpai,” Izaya says as the door gives up and falls to the ground with a bang.

  
  



	10. Chapter 10

Saturday dawns and Izaya feels less like death warmed over and more like an actual human being, minus two functioning nostrils. The twins are restless and crashing into walls in a tizzy. It’s the perfect sort of day to go to the mall and buy new baby clothes, while he still can’t smell anything. Like children.

There are two shopping malls in town worth going to. There’s the one nearest to Izaya’s home, chock full of high-end brands and marble floors and foreign tourists. Then there’s the one closer to Heiwajima’s house, with shops that sell affordable things and not brand-name baby clothes made from zebra pelts. He chooses the second, even though it’s more crowded and tends to reek of the McDonalds in the food court and is farther away.

He props the door gently in the frame, securing it and the door knob with duct tape until a real actual professional can fix it. Or just put a new door up.

The ride to the mall is crowded as usual, but not quite as crowded as the mall itself.

“Why are there so many people here? Don’t they have lives?”

“Cake!”

The first order of business is to actually buy baby leashes, like he’d been threatening. Stooping over is making his back ache like he’s ninety.

“Look, they have a little stuffed animal backpack on them!” the shopkeeper explains happily, “so they won’t suspect they’re on leashes!”

Izaya rather suspects that children aren’t that stupid and can probably associate limited ranges of mobility with a fluffy unicorn, but he also doesn’t care if Kumai knows they’re on a leash or not. He’d get them dog collar and be done if that wouldn’t have child services called on his ass faster than you could say ‘child abuse.’

“That’s great!” he says instead. “Which backpack do you want?” he says to Kumai, with a wink at the shopkeeper.

“Ma!” one says, clinging to a truly terrifying stuffed cat with eyes pointing two opposite directions. The other is still looking at him suspiciously, like she knows this is a trap. He suspects that’s the one he tried to leave on the sidewalk, but it’s hard to tell. Cautiously, she points to a dog.

That works.

It’s infinitely easier to navigate the mall when your two largest concerns are attached to your wrist by leads. Well, it does raise the issue of others tripping over the toddlers, but they’re made of tough stuff. They’ll live.

Probably.

But they make it to the store without incident. It’s brightly lit and contains colors truly appalling to the eye and cartoon characters Izaya’s never seen before. And screaming children. And smells vaguely of disinfectant and feces.

“She looks so precious!” a store clerk says to a woman holding a very unhappy looking baby in a dog costume. The baby proceeds to get its retribution by vomiting all over both adults. Now that’s karma.

“Cake!” a twin says.

“That’s not actually a catch-all word,” Izaya informs her.

“Cake!”

“Whatever. Be an uneducated heathen your entire life. I don’t care.”

Izaya wanders over to the section that seems to have clothing approximately large enough and without garish cartoon characters. It’s not like the twins really watched cartoons anyway. The news is for the intelligent. (And those that can’t find the remote. But that’s beside the point.)

“Do you wear a 2T or a 3T?” he asks one twin.

“Gah!”

“Thanks,” he sighs.

“Well, how much do they weight?” a shop assistant pops out of the ether. There they are. Usually they don’t assume he’s the buyer and leave him alone. It must be the baby leashes that give a strong vibe of power and control.

“I’m not quite sure,” Izaya admits.

“Well, I’d say your best bet for the moment is a 2T. It’ll probably be a bit big on them, but it’s better to buy big and let them grow into it.”

“That’s a good idea,” Izaya says as if his plan hadn’t been to buy the biggest size they had and hope it lasted for a few years.

“Are they starting to toilet train yet?” the sales clerk asks. “Because then you’ll want to be getting elastic waistbands so they don’t have to fumble with the openings. Or dresses.” The sales clerk leans in conspiratorially, “but I’d stick with the pants. I’ve seen some nasty things on the backs of dresses that weren’t moved out of the way in time, believe me.”

Oh hell. Toilet training. He’s pretty sure the workers at the nursery are supposed to do that. He’ll have to check the paperwork, that sounds like an absolutely hellish time.

But the store clerk isn’t done. “One time, we even had a little girl in a dress shit on the floor! Gross. Let me tell you, I don’t get paid enough to deal with that. Best stick with the pants. Oh, and pants with some pockets for toys and things. One time, we had a little girl stick a marble up her nose for safe keeping. It got lodged in her nasal cavity, haha. That was an _experience,_ let me tell you.”

“That’s nice,” Izaya says, trying to edge away and grab as many t-shirt as he can.

“But if you get too many pockets,” the clerk continues, “then it’s a hell of a time checking the pockets before laundry. One time, I was doing laundry and I didn’t quite check all the pockets of my little Yuki’s cargo shorts. Turns out there was a lizard in one of them! Oh ho, now that was a surprise coming out of the dryer, let me tell you that!”

“That’s some interesting insight,” Izaya says, swearing to never buy clothes for his sisters with any pockets, ever. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

“And well, be careful when buying cotton because—”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to figure it out,” Izaya says, smile becoming a little frosty at the edges.

“Well, some people say that but—”

“If I wanted to listen to alarmist idiots prattling, I’d turn on the TV. Go away.”

The clerk looks taken aback, but opens her mouth again. Izaya very firmly presents her his back, and there’s her disgruntled muttering fade into the background music of the store as she walks away.  Izaya holds up a ‘2T’ t-shirt and glances at the twins. It’ll do. He grabs twenty in seven colors before doing the same with pants.

The cashier lifts an eyebrow as he dumps his arm load on the till.

“You know that these things ain’t cheap, right?”

“I never want to come here again,” Izaya says emphatically as the high, screeching cries of a newborn emanate out of one corner of the store.

“You and me both,” the cashier agrees, ringing up the clothes.

 

He’s so stupid sometimes.

“Hey, you!”

The shopping mall is in Blood Red territory. He knows this, counted on it not a even a week ago.

“You were with that kid!”

Oh, wait, Blood Reds. The ones that he sicced Heiwajima on. Thaaat’s right. This may not have been his smartest move ever.

He would run, but he’s got two toddlers attached to his wrist and a shopping bag full of clothes that he pretty much walked through hell for.

Fuck it. He drops the bag and scoops the twins up like two squirming sacks of flour under each arm and books it.

It’s different than being chased by Shizu-chan. For one, his heart isn’t beating with excitement, but sheer fucking terror. For another, dead weight under his arms is fighting him with each fucking step, pretty much begging him to cut his losses and drop them. He would be tempted, but the leashes would slow him down, like they’re doing now, trying to tangle in his feet.

(On the plus side, his sinuses have never been clearer.)

There are multiple sets of footsteps behind him. All he can hope for is to get to a relatively busy intersection and blend in with the crowd. He’s not Heiwajima. He’s not sure how long he could last against two dedicated attackers, sans twins.

It’s hard going, hauling twins under his arms, his lungs burning with each breath, but sheer desperation makes it possible to run for blocks, into an alleyway, almost home free. He can _see_ a park with parents and children. Then one of the twins manages to land a limb in his kidney.

It’s a sharp, unexpected burst of pain, causing him to stumble to his knees, scraping against the pavement. He drops one twin, and she _shrieks_ when she hits the pavement, a high, keening sound.

He’s scrambling to his feet and scooping the fallen twin up, but it’s like he’s moving through molasses, he’s too slow and he can’t move any faster, and the footsteps are getting closer, and he’s halfway up when he’s grabbed by the hair and hauled backwards, neck cracking with the tension.

“You thought you could outrun us, you little shit?” the voice is too close, warm breath on his cheek, and it smells like fish and mint. It’s disgusting and warm and humid and he can _feel_ the bacteria clinging to his cheek.

Izaya kicks one leg back and hits something soft and squishy, and he’s free for a brief moment. Too brief.

There are hands on his elbows, prying the twins away, dragging him back by his shirt. Back further away from the park and what safety it might have offered.

He’s kicking and flailing and he can hear the twins _screaming_ , and why does no one come? Someone has to hear them, right? And they’re going back and back until they’re in a corner where no one could hear them and there’s a foot in his stomach and it knocks the breath out of him and it aches long after the impact. There’s a _thunk_ and then his eye explodes in pain and his ears ring and he can’t quite focus, but the twins are still _screaming_ and the Blood Reds are still talking, but he doesn’t know what they’re saying and all that’s keeping him up are the grips on his elbows.

“Hey! Hey!” one voices cuts through the rest. “Hold that one, I have an idea.”

Then there’s one of the twins, held with an arm out, and she’s kicking and screaming and crying and there’s the too bright flash of a knife in the shade of the alley.

Izaya tries to say something, anything, but there’s a fist in his stomach and all the air leaves him in a solid rush.

“Hold her _still,”_ the one holding the knife snaps, and then there’s blood on her arm and she’s screaming louder than he’s ever heard.

Something shatters as he strains against the holds he can’t break as his sister screams and the other sobs and he struggles for breath.

“Jesus _christ,_ Izaya, what are you do—”

He’s never been happier to hear a single voice before as he is in that moment.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL _FUCK_ ARE YOU DOING?”

He’s never seen anyone _move_ as fast as Heiwajima does in that moment.

It’s a good thing that the thug holding the twin drops her, because Izaya’s not sure that she would have had good chances flying across the alley like that, landing with a sick crunch.

Heiwajima is a blur in the shade, moving too fast for Izaya’s eyes to track, sounds seemingly disjointed from what’s going on, the crack of a breaking bone before it even breaks. The support at his elbows is gone and Izaya falls heavily to the ground, curled around his ribs, before he’s looking to see where his sisters have gone. There’s one on the ground in front of him, not moving, and there’s a sick feeling in his stomach that feels like nausea and he’s scraping his palms on the pavement crawling towards her. As he gets closer, he can see the rise and fall of her chest, hear soft, mewling cries.

There’s a knife next to her, blood still glistening on the tip, and he reaches and grabs for the handle, wrapping his fingers around the handle until he can’t feel them.

He’s getting closer, when he’s suddenly dragged up by the back of his shirt and hoisted into the the air.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING YOU BASTARD?!”

“Shizuo! It’s me, stop!” But Heiwajima’s eyes look straight through him, so Izaya stops being thrown across the alley by doing the only thing he can think of: latching onto Heiwajima’s neck and not letting go. There’s a pain in his forearm and his fingers and he distantly thinks of the knife but the thought is like water and slips from his mind.

Heiwajima starts pushing on his shoulders, and damn does it _hurt,_ but he can’t get proper leverage and Izaya is using his legs and inwardly chanting _be the koala_ with a feverish sort of desperation and he will not be moved.

There’s a sniffling sound and the horrible, jarring baby cries start up again with a chorus of “Izu-nii! Izu-nii!” and Heiwajima stops trying to dislodge Izaya from his death grip.

“You can get off me now,” Heiwajima says. “I’m not gonna throw you.”

He’s not actually sure he can, his limbs are locked and not really obeying him at the moment.

“But you smell so good,” Izaya says weakly.

But there’s a weak whimpering sound, and Izaya slides off real quick after that.

There’s a bloody twin closest, so that’s who he goes for first. He hears a ripping sound behind him,and a light blue piece of fabric appears in his peripheral.

“Here, use this to wrap her arm.”

Izaya tries, but his fingers are about as useful as sausages, and eventually Shizuo gets tired of watching him drop the ends and takes over, saying, “go get your other sister.”

The other twin is in much better shape, crying and snot covered and promising to have some truly spectacular bruises come tomorrow, but not openly bleeding, and she runs to cling to him as soon as he kneels down in front of her.

Shizuo is holding the other twin. “Come on, I’ll get Kasuka and we’ll go back to my house.”

“I can manage,” Izaya says. “I have a first aid kit at at home.”

Shizuo just gapes at him. “Fuck, you are clearly not managing.”

Izaya thought he had been burnt out of any emotions, but there’s apparently room for a spark of anger. “I’m doing just fine.”

Heiwajima glares at him, teeth grinding. Izaya suspects the only reason he’s not currently being thrown down the length of the alley is that Heiwajima is still holding a sniffling twin in his arms.

“What part of this is doing fine?” Heiwajima yells. “You just got the shit kicked out of you by a gang, which I told you was dangerous to get involved with. You’re bleeding, your sister’s bleeding. You can barely take care of yourself or them. You had no food in your house. You. Are. Not. Fine.”

“I’ve been fine for _years._ It wasn’t until you showed up that anything started to go to shit!”

“Me?! How is it my fault you have no food, barely bathe your sisters—”

“You know why they attacked me?” Izaya yells, “because they saw me with _you._ ”

“And do you remember why they saw me with you, Iza-ya-kun?” Heiwajima taunts, “ _because you set that up.”_

“Brother?” a soft voice says from the mouth of the alley. “Are you ready to go home now?”

There’s a moment of silence where a pin drop could have been heard.

“Yeah, just gimme a minute, Kasuka,” Heiwajima says at last.

“Are they coming for dinner? We’ll need more carrots if that’s the case.” Kasuka casts flat eyes over the scene. “And possibly chicken.”

“We’re not—” Izaya starts.

“That’s probably a good idea,” Heiwajima says. “Could you run ahead and get that? And possibly some diapers too?”

“Yeah. I’ll meet you back at the house,” Kasuka says and wanders off.

“We’re not going to your house,” Izaya says. “I’m—”

“You’re _not_ fucking _fine,”_ Heiwajima yells, giving Izaya a shove. It’s a relatively light shove, by any standard, but it takes Izaya several stumbling steps and the help of the alley wall to regain his feet, and even then, the world isn’t quite up to sorts. “You’ve been attacked by a gang, you’re clearly out of it, and your sister is bleeding freely.”

He can tell by the footsteps that Heiwajima is coming closer, but he doesn’t realize how close he’s gotten until the knife he’d forgotten about is being peeled out of his hand. “It’s okay to accept help, you know.”

Izaya laughs, helpless and sharp. “Is that what friends are for?”

“Yeah,” Heiwajima says softly, “that’s exactly what friends are for.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again to Max, who indulges my ramblings far too often, and with such good grace.  
> also, i'm taking prompts to tide myself over this holiday season. hmu at https://adastraperastera.tumblr.com or here or wherever.


	11. Chapter 11

Heiwajima’s house is brightly lit and clean and organized in a way that seems completely incongruous with who he is as a person. Izaya half suspected someplace like a hoarder’s den, chaotically messy with heavy blinds over the windows. Maybe a few cockroaches for ambiance. 

He also owns the single biggest first aid kit Izaya has seen this side of a hospital, well-equipped enough that you could probably play nurse to a small army for at least a week. Maybe longer. 

Izaya sits on the toilet, holding the slashed twin still as Heiwajima inspects her arm, even as each knock of her head against his torso ricochets pain through his body and the smell of antiseptic singes the inside of his nostrils and the light burns his eyes. He’s such a freaking saint and no one notices.

“It’s not that deep,” Heiwajima says. “It might not even scar.”

Izaya suspects it will, because things like this have a tendency to leave evidence of themselves. At least there will now be a decisive way to tell them apart. The un-traumatized one and the one with the kanji for ‘blood’ crudely scraped into her arm.

“Not all of us have your remarkable healing ability,” Izaya says dryly. “It might yet.” 

Heiwajima applies the anti-septic and winces as Kumai screeches. 

“Trust me,” Heiwajima says, tone as dry as the desert, “I have experience with cuts and scrapes.” He stands in one fluid motion. “I’ll wait to bandage it until you’ve all had a bath.” 

“Are you saying I stink?”

That’s rich. Has he gotten a whiff of himself lately? Heiwajima smells like a piss covered alley.

“Yes,” Heiwajima says flatly. “Also, you’re covered in blood. That’s kinda gross.” 

Izaya looks down. So he is. It’s rather old, and starting to dry, coming off in large flakes. He’s not sure how he missed it, but then again, shock is a mighty powerful drug. 

He read a spread once about a man who walked several miles to safety on a broken leg, not realizing it till he hit the hospital. This is relatively minor in comparison, he supposes. 

He realizes belatedly that Heiwajima was talking. Not that what he has to say is terribly important.

“What was that? I wasn’t paying attention,” Izaya says.

Heiwajima frowns at him, “you feeling alright? Your eyes look a bit weird.”

And then Heiwajima leans forward and starts carding his fingers through his hair.

“How forward—  _ ouch _ !”

“Ah, I thought so,” Heiwajima says, pulling his hand back, fingers glistening red. “You’ve got a head wound. Why didn’t you mention it?”

“Is it any of your business? Why’d you have to poke it, you oaf. Humans have eyes for a reason.”

Heiwajima scowls. “It’s best to watch head wounds. You can stay the night, my parents won’t be home ‘till late Sunday anyway.” 

“Ooh, Shizu-chan, I don’t know how I feel about being your dirty little secret. I can—”

“It wasn’t actually a request.” 

“Oh, I see. Playing the powerful, demanding type. Well, you know how my—”

“Izaya-kun,” Heiwajima says, “let me help you, damn it. It’s what friends  _ do.” _

“Do I really have a choice?” Izaya says, and it tastes bitter on his tongue. 

“You always have a choice,” Heiwajima says, and there’s a bit of a growl to his words. “And right now, you can choose to be miserable and keep spiraling down that hole you’ve got yourself in. Or, you could choose to accept help.”

Logically, Izaya knows it doesn’t cost him anything to accept Heiwajima’s help. Logically, he knows that it will probably create a sense of intimacy that’s further than any other relationship Heiwajima has. Logically, it’s the best option. 

But it  _ feels  _ like it costs something; something that he’s spent years and years building for himself. Ah, so this is why some people choke on apologies. Pride is harder to lose when it’s not just words.

But he’s lost that already, hasn’t he? When he was stupid enough to not  _ think.  _ Think about the Blood Reds and anger. But maybe that’s just the way of things. One can’t really become the chess master, moving pieces detached with a clear view of the entire board. One can be, at best, the King, invaluable but essentially weak.

Or you could be like Shizu-chan. The Queen. Powerful, valuable, but ultimately sacrificial, if need be.

But you’re always on the board. No one is untouchable. Not really.

But hell, no one  _ asked  _ Heiwajima to fucking kidnap him.

“I’m not ‘spiraling into a hole,’ did your little brain come up with that on the spot, or have you been practicing that one?”

“You clearly  _ are.” _

_ “ _ And what makes you an expert on that, Shizu-chan? Huh? You’ve only known me for, what, a few days? You don’t really know me at all.”

“I know when something isn’t right!”

“Like when you slaughter others on the streets? Is that right, Shizu-chan?”

Heiwajima’s breathing is coming fast, his fingers curling into fists. “I haven’t killed anybody!” 

“Are you sure? Have you checked? Or have you not have time in between beating the shit out of everyone and wallowing in self pity?”

Silence, only broken by the call of, “I’m home!” and the sound of a door closing. The moment shatters.

“I’m gonna go grab some clothes,” Heiwajima says, “it’d be best to put the ones you’re wearing through the wash.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Well, for one, they’ve got blood all over them.” 

Izaya looks down. “Ah. So they do.”

Heiwajima is staring intently now.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” 

Izaya waves a hand airily. “Of course I’m all right. I only had the crap beat out of me a few moments ago. I’m in perfect health. ”

“I’m sure you can figure out the faucet. I’ll be back in a minute to make sure you haven’t drowned.” 

And just like that, Izaya is left with two battered toddlers in a foreign bathroom.

Well. No time like the present. The sooner he can get out of here, the better. It’d be more efficient to bathe with the toddlers. Here’s to whoever’s listening that they don’t piss in the water. 

“You can be Mairu,” he says to the twin with the new scar, as he plops her in the water. “And I suppose that makes you Kururi.” In the drink she goes. 

Removing his own shirt is somehow more painful than removing Kumai’s and— oh. 

It’s. He’s not quite sure he’s seen these colors on a human before, though it could just be the too-harsh lights in the bathroom. There’s sickly green-purples spread like a cancer across his ribcage. He pokes one of the prettier purples.

Yep, that hurt.

That’s gonna be an absolute bitch for a while.

Whatever. He sits in the tub and begins the long process of twin wrangling, rubbing pungent floral soap over the twins. It smells disgustingly of lilacs and something else. Maybe sage, maybe oregano. He’s not really familiar with spices. But people like to put them into soap for some reason. Maybe so they can attract mates by smelling like food.

That’s when Heiwajima throws open the bathroom door. Without knocking. “I grabbed some clothes. They might be a bit big on you, but no one here really cares.” 

“Um, Shizu-chan. Have you ever heard of knocking?”

Heiwajima looks at him blankly, “but this is my house.” 

“But I’m the one naked.” 

“That doesn’t make it your house.”

Izaya slaps his forehead with his palm. He can’t really be that stupid, can he?

“I forget that all pretenses of privacy go out the window as soon as you walk into a room. How could I have forgotten?”

“You shit, I’m just trying to help—”

“I don’t want your help,” Izaya says from clenched teeth. He feels ridiculous, sitting naked and wet in a bathtub and looking up at Heiwajima. He feels like a child and it only makes his jaw clench tighter, his shoulder go tense.

Then Heiwajima’s eyes go wide. “Holy shit, what happened to your ribs?”

“This? Oh, I had the shit kicked out of me. You might remember, you were there. I was there. Good times.”

“Does it hurt?”

Like a motherfucker, now that he knows its there. 

“Not much,” he lies. 

“Liar. I bet you can’t even lift your arms above your head.”

He totally can. He’ll just prove it— oh, okay, maybe not.

“Here, just. Give me the shampoo,” Heiwajima says, holding out a hand. 

“What for? Your hair is a bit too dry for it to have any real effect.” 

“For your hair, idiot.” 

He was afraid of that. 

“I can wash my own hair.”

“Sure you can,” Heiwajima says as he ignores him and starts to rub his fingers through Izaya’s hair, cautiously towards the area with the injury. It feels warm. Pleasant, to have fingers rubbing his scalp. So he allows it and continues to do the same for his little sisters, rubbing the same lilac-oregano-whatever soap into their hair. 

It’s quiet in the bathroom except for the sounds of babbling the twins make and the gentle sloshes of water against the side of the tub.

“Hey, don’t fall asleep.”

“What,” Izaya says, jerking his eyes open. “I’m not.”

“We should probably take you to a hospital.”

“No way,” Izaya says, scrubbing down one of his sisters to prove how fine he is. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not,” Heiwajima says, cupping his hand over Izaya’s eyes as he rinses his hair free of the soap.

“I will kick and scream every step of the way.”

“Wow, sounds like a real struggle. How ever will I manage?”

“Sarcasm isn’t attractive, Heiwajima.”

“You’re naked in my bathtub, you can call me Shizuo.”

“If this is what it takes, I hate to think what Tanaka-senpai might have done to earn the honor.”

“That’s right. We can get you in for a scan tomorrow when you go to apologize to Tom-san.”

Izaya gives  _ Heiwajima _ a look. “I knew you had ulterior motives. Do you ever do anything that doesn’t try and ease your guilt complex?” 

“Learned from the best,” Heiwajima pauses, pressing maybe a little too hard with the pads of his fingers. “Or I guess from the worst. You kinda fucked up, didn’t you?”

“Shut up.” Then there’s something wet on his shoulder, swiping across his back. It prickles and it’s far too rough and he doesn’t want it on his skin. “Whoa, no, no. I can wash myself.”

“Uh-huh.”

Izaya smacks Heiwajima’s hand. “You’re dismissed. I can take care of it from here.”

“I—”

“I don’t want your help. Leave. I know you’re used to strong arming your way into what you want, but I don’t want you here.” 

“I don’t—”

“You  _ do.  _ What will it take to make you see you’re not wanted here?”

Kururi attempts to do a bellyflop into all four inches of water, sending a wave of water around that almost, but not quite, sloshes over the top of the tub.

Heiwajima stands from the side of the tub. “I’m gonna go help make dinner. Scream if you fall and die getting out.” And with that, he disappears through the door, taking care to leave it open a crack. 

Izaya finds the towels hiding under the sink. They’re all rough and he hates them, tries to use them as little as possible. Then inspects what clothes Heiwajima thought would be appropriate. There’s three shirts, two smaller than the other, and a single pair of sweatpants with a drawstring waist.

Really? It’s not like Heiwajima is some massively beefy guy. He’s rather weedy, looks like he’d fall over in a strong breeze. They aren’t that different in size. He continues to tell himself that all through cinching the waist band as far as it will go and pretending there isn’t enough spare material to make a set of wings out of the t-shirt. He tries really hard not to think of a flying squirrel, with the skin flaps under the arms. 

Well, at least there’s little chance Heiwajima even knows what a flying squirrel is, the dumb bastard.

But it’s hard, with every movement scraping loose material over his skin. He just wants his own shirt back, one that doesn’t swing around his stomach with every movement and make him itch with the feeling of the wrong kind of detergent. 

The twins are abnormally complacent for once, subjecting to wearing t-shirt dresses with fair amounts of grace. He rather hopes little Heiwajima did remember to buy diapers. Each passing second only tempts fate a little more.

He comes out from the bathroom to the smell of something fragrant and near overwhelming. It’s the distinct smell of cooking bacon, the smell that clings to the inside of your nostrils and your clothes and lingers for hours afterwards. It seems to flood the house, and Izaya swears he can feel his arteries start to clog in protest, can feel the grease settling into his hair. Can feel his drying hair itch across the back of his neck. He finds the way to the kitchen easily by following the sounds of chopping and muffled cursing, dragging the twins along by their hands.

“Brother, you don’t need to chop so hard.” 

“I’m  _ trying  _ not to!” 

Both of the occupants look up when he enters the kitchen. 

“I bought diapers,” Kasuka says, looking at the twins and nodding over the table in the center of the room. He’s got an entirely blank expression on his face. It’s rather hard to tell what he feels about the situation, if he feels anything at all. Now that would be a sick form of justice, if one Heiwajima couldn’t feel at all and the other feels too much. 

Izaya grabs the bag on the table and retreats into the hallway to diaper wrangle.

“Shut up!” he hears Shizuo say. 

“I didn’t say anything,” is the flat reply. 

“Your face says it all!” 

“Interesting. That’s not a common complaint.”

Oh. So it  _ is _ a case of chronic resting bitch face, that’s nice. At least one of them got self-restraint. 

Well, whatever. The twins are diapered, so he drags them back into the kitchen. 

“What’s for dinner?”

“Macaroni and cheese,” Shizuo says over a frying pan.

“And omelettes,” Kasuka says, stirring an absolutely massive pot.

“That’s healthy, Shizu-chan.” 

“Like you can talk. All you eat is cup noodles.” 

“I’m trying to achieve immortality through preservatives. You’re just clogging arteries.” 

“Do your sisters eat pasta?” Kasuka asks, cutting his brother off before he can even start.

Izaya blinks, “They eat anything.” And it’s true. One time, he caught one of them trying to eat a rock on the way to nursery. And another, a bug. Maybe he could set them free into the backyard to scavenge for themselves. Toddler vs Wild. He could film it and make a hit TV show.

“Can they use chopsticks yet?” 

“No, they usually just use their fingers.” 

“You should start teaching them how,” Shizuo says, “Kasuka was using his when he was two.”

“You only used yours when you were four,” Kasuka says, flat.

“What. I was—”

“It’s okay. Somethings are just harder for some than others,” Izaya drawls, mocking. 

“How old were you when you started, huh?”

Izaya shrugs, “I don’t remember. It wasn’t exactly a landmark for me like it clearly was for you.”

“Why you—”

“Food’s ready,” Kasuka cuts his brother off again. Clearly, the best way to calm the beast is to simply cut him off at the source. “We don’t have any high chairs, though.”

“We can eat in the family room,” Shizuo says. “The table’s lower.”

“They can stand on the chairs,” Izaya suggests. 

“What do you do at home? I don’t remember seeing any highchairs.” 

Saying that they eat on the floor doesn’t feel right at all. “We make do.” 

“Let’s just eat at the living room table, make it easy,” Kasuka says, making it clear which Heiwajima got all the brains. “Will they need a spoon for the pasta?”

Can the twins even handle spoons? Maybe? He’s never given them one, but maybe they’ll come through for him. He glances over. Mairu looks up at him, scowling, and farts. 

Yeah, no. 

“No, I’m sure they’ll make do without.” He hopes they burn their fingers, the cretins. 

It’s a matter of moments to be seated around the table, everyone with their own bowl of food, even the twins. They better not get used to five star treatment. 

Kasuka and Shizuo dig right in, Kasuka eating with tiny, delicate bites and Shizuo shoveling food into his mouth as soon as there’s room to fit it. But. Izaya hesitates.

He’s surrounded by family photos not his own, in a house not his own, about to eat food not his own. In clothes not his own, that grate against his skin and adheres to his back and clings in all the wrong places and he can feel the skin of his side every time he puts his arm down and it  _ sticks  _ to itself and his hair itches where it’s drying unbrushed and his eyes are gritty with  _ something  _ that’s probably floating in the air in this damn house and it’s not  _ fucking helped  _ by how goddamn  _ bright  _ the lights are—

And he  _ didn’t want this.  _ He didn’t  _ ask  _ for this. He was bullied into it, gracelessly.

And now his jaw aches to match the dull thudding in his head and the hurt every time he takes a fucking  _ breath  _ and he can’t breathe too deeply because it feels like his ribs might crack from the inside out and and—

“Izaya, aren’t you hungry?” 

—good god, the  _ smell.  _ He’s never going to get the smell of oil out of his clothes, his hair. He can feel the particles of grease  _ clinging  _ to his skin, absorbing and he knows no matter how many washes that it won’t come out. 

_ No, he’s not fucking hungry.  _

“Then  _ don’t eat.  _ You could at least pretend to be grateful—”

“Grateful?” it comes out quiet through his closed throat. “Grateful? For what? For being dragged to your house? For being  _ washed  _ and  _ touched _ and  _ prodded _ when I didn’t want to be?”

“I was just trying—”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you trying isn’t good enough? Trying your best is what parents tell their children to make them feel better, and you certainly aren’t helping. You’re like a little child dragging clean laundry about trying to ‘help.’ You’re only really making a nuisance of yourself.”

“You need help. How are you not getting that?” Heiwajima yells back. “Your parents left you. You can’t live on your own!”

“And yet, I have been, haven’t I?”

“ _ You haven’t!”  _

Izaya looks at the twins, using their hands to shovel mac and cheese into their mouths as fast as they can. “I seem to have been doing fine. We’re all happy and healthy, today excluded. But what about you, Shizu-chan? What has a loving and caring family gotten you?” Izaya smiles, tilts his head to the side. “A guilt complex? Self-hatred? Anger issues?”

“Well  _ excuse me  _ for trying to fucking help—”

“Flailing about causing a mess isn’t helping, haven’t you been listening? Or is your brain too tiny to comprehend it?”

“Oh,  _ fuck you.”  _

“Getting crude all ready? Oh dear, and in front of your baby brother?”

Heiwajima grips at his hair. “That’s not what I mean and you know it. You-- you're changing the subject!”

Izaya raises an eyebrow. “Am I? What is the topic at hand? Your low IQ or your multitude of personal flaws and failings?”

“Neither, no. That’s not-- You. We were talking about you.”

“What about me, hmm?”

“You need help, you need--”

“I did! How good it was of you to help me out back in the alley way! Now I’m all better. Look at you, Shizu-chan, protector of the weak, just like you’ve always wanted.”

“No! Stop turning this about me! I’m trying to talk to you about being neglected!”

Izaya takes a bite of his omelette. “I’m not being neglected. You’re not a good host by any means, but--”

“Oh my fucking god, you know what I’m talking about--”Heiwajima is hoisting him up by the front of his borrowed t-shirt, the thread cracking and stretching under the strain. “Talking about how your parents aren’t around.”

“Well, they’re not dead--”

“Stop!” Heiwajima says, shaking him. It makes Izaya’s eyes feel like pinballs in his head. “No, we’re talking about how they abuse you by leaving you behind and  _ don’t love you _ !”

There’s a power in silence most don’t realise. It’s a space to put anything others want while saying nothing at all. Nothing damning. Izaya doesn’t say that being shaken makes him feel like he’s going to vomit. Doesn’t say that of course they don’t love him, nobody does, but he’s known that. Known that for a while now.

He doesn’t know what Heiwajima puts into the silence, but he sets Izaya down.

“I think you two should go to bed,” Kasuka says from the table, calmly sipping his tea.

“I’m going to do the dishes,” Heiwajima says, gathering dishes jerkily.

Kururi throws herself protectively around her bowl and the three noodles in it. “No!”

Heiwajima takes it anyway, barely noticing the toddler clinging to it with dear life. Kururi looks betrayed and heartbroken, her sister patting her shoulder comfortingly. 

Now’s the time to make his escape. The only real issue is that he doesn’t have his keys, except that oh, wait that’s not an issue because his door is barely hanging on with duct tape.

Izaya stands from the table, gathering his sisters with him and heading towards the door. He’s gotten as far as trying to wrangle toddlers into shoes when there’s a soft voice from behind him.

“My brother isn’t good with words.” The voice is soft and emotionless. There’s the sound of breaking porcelain and an ‘oh fuck’ from the kitchen, but Kasuka doesn’t even flinch. “You’ll have to excuse him.”

“Is that what you do?”

Kasuka shrugs. “Sure, but mostly I just don’t pay attention. He means wells.”

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

“That only applies if you’ve got no follow through. That’s not his problem at all,” Kasuka shrugs. “Wanna play Mario Kart?”

“What?”

But Kasuka is already turning back into the living room. 

“It’s a game where you drive--”

“I know what it  _ is, _ ” Izaya says.

“Have you played before?”

No. But how hard could it be?

The controls are fairly simple. One button to go forward, a joystick to steer. Pretty basic. It’s the constantly moving bouncing background that turns out to be an issue. It’s rather hard to concentrate on where you’re trying to go when there are three thousand little things twirling in the background. 

“It’s alright,” Kasuka says as Izaya’s dumb little car-cart-thing falls off the edge for the fifth time. “It takes a while to learn how the controls respond.”

Like hell it does. The dumb little joystick just doesn’t work no matter how hard he jams it. It would be just like a Heiwajima to give him the broken controller for an ego boost?

“You don’t need to mash the buttons so hard, you’ll break another controller,” Kasuka says like his controller isn’t already shot to shit. But, just for shits and giggles, he tries to be a little more gentle and take a few deep breaths. Around the fifth race, he’s actually doing a decent job. He’s actually managed to stay on the course, in the pack, despite the swirling colors and unnecessary backgrounds. He;s figured out how to throw a banana to decimate his enemies when  _ they  _ strike. One takes his lap as an open invitation, laying across his lap on top of his controller. The other, not to be left out, wedges herself under his left arm and sticks her head in his armpit, like his arm is nothing but a particularly ungainly headpiece. 

His dumb cart falls off the edge, and he sighs. “You little traitors.” 

“I’m sure they don’t mean it,” Kasuka says as Mairu slaps her hands over Izaya’s eyes. “Never mind.”

“Hellions, see if I do anything for you again,” Izaya bats the hands away just in time to see his dumb little car thing go over the edge as Kururi laughs a joyful little toddler laugh. “You just like seeing me in pain, don’t you?” He asks as Mairu steals his controller and hits buttons randomly as the screen pauses, unpauses, makes his cart go backwards, falls off the edge. 

“They’re just trying to help.”

“But now I’m losing.” 

“Not you.”

“Oh is that it?” Izaya asks Kumai as they blink up at him with false innocence, “siding with the enemy? Is mac and cheese all it takes to buy you out?”

“Cake!” Mairu says forcefully, crawling into his lap and closing her eyes.

“I think they’re tired,” Kasuka says, turning the gaming console off. “We’ve got a spare futon, but only the one.” 

“That’s fine, we’ll all fit,” Izaya says and Kasuka nods, heading over to a closet in the hallway. 

“Brother’s in charge of airing it, so it might smell a bit musty.” 

“Shizu-chan shrinking his chores? I never would have thought.”

Between the two of them, it’s only seconds before they have the futon spread on the floor, blankets unfolded. 

“Brother usually gets up around nine on weekends and likes to make breakfast. Usually pancakes.” 

“Cake!”

“Indeed. Sleep well.” 

Kasuka shuffles off. Judging by how the sounds coming from the kitchen now include the irate tones of Heiwajima, he went to go save the dishes. 

Izaya curls under the blanket, one twin crawling onto his back, pressing his poor ribs into the floor. “You do like seeing me suffer,” he says as he gently turns to his side, dislodging her. She lays on his face in retaliation, while the other curls into his chest, gently. The other gets the hint, laying half on her sister and half into his stomach, like puppies. 

They’re warm weights pushing gently against him with each breath, the rise and fall of their little chests unexpectedly delicate. He’ll have to be careful not to crush them, but he’s always been a light sleeper. They’ll be fine. He falls asleep to the gentle exhales of his sisters, small puffs barely stirring the cotton of his borrowed t-shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for max, for whom i might kill a man if they ask really nicely. 
> 
> i'm also still taking prompts. if anyone has any interest


	12. Chapter 12

He wakes up to the smell of shit.

He opens his eyes to a field of white, sits up to discover one of his charming sisters had taken it upon herself to stick her ass in his face over the night.

The other one’s still angelically curled into his stomach, sleeping peacefully and sucking gently on a thumb. That one hasn’t got bandages— Kururi.

He decides there and then that Kururi will be his favorite. Let that fuck them over for a while, make them compete for his affection. He’ll pull their little strings and—

_ Mairu farts in his face.  _ To hell with that, Kururi is his favorite, hands down. No competition. The other one can run around in the backyard eating rocks and whatever the hell else she finds on the ground. They can use her for organs in case Kururi has an accident or some degenerative disease. 

Or donate her to science. He’s pretty sure he could find a place to take her. 

Whatever. He’s up now, and he tries to reach for his phone, but that’s in his pants pocket. That Heiwajima stole from him yesterday. Drats. He hopes that Heiwajima thought to have his phone out of his pockets before putting anything in the wash, but his expectations are rather low.

Well, it’s a good excuse as any to get a new phone. Maybe one that doesn’t crap out every time he tries to go online. Or one with a full keyboard. That’d be nice, certainly save his thumbs a little time before arthritis kicks in. 

There are quiet sounds coming from the kitchen. Izaya carefully pulls away from his favorite and the spare and goes to investigate. He’s not overly surprised to see Kasuka fiddling with the kettle, clearly in the process of making tea. 

Kasuka looks even less surprised to see him.

“Tea? It’s green,” Kasuka says, even as he pulls down another cup. 

“Please.”

“My brother wants to take you to the hospital today,” Kasuka says as he pours. “If you don’t want to go, now would be the time to leave.”

Ah, so that’s why he told him when Heiwajima gets up. 

“I dunno, he might show up at my house again,” Izaya says, accepting the cup. “Not sure my door can take much more abuse.”

Kasuka shrugs.

“He won’t follow you.” 

Izaya raises an eyebrow. “How can you be sure?” 

“He wanted to make you comfortable. He even made you his favorite comfort foods last night. He’d be crushed.” Izaya can’t tell if this is supposed to be a guilt trip or not. The flat delivery makes it feel more like a statement of fact than anything else. “If you leave now, he’ll think you’re afraid of him and leave you alone.”

“Loads of people are afraid of him.”

“That’s why he has no friends. Everybody thinks he could go crazy on them and hurt them.”

“Are they wrong?”

“No, that’s just why he has no friends.”

Even his own brother. Well, that’s what you get for being a monster, isn’t it? No friends, nobody to love you. 

“In that case, I better be going then. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Kasuka,” Izaya says. “If you could just direct me to my pants, that’d be great.”

There’s the distant sound of a default ringtone blasting through the air, then a muffled thump followed by cursing. 

“Ah,” Kasuka says, “looks like Brother out-maneuvered you.” 

And  _ there’s _ the sound of heavy footstep on the stairs, then a harried and disheveled Heiwajima slides into the doorway. 

“Kasuka, have you seen—” Heiwajima’s eyes settle on Izaya almost like a physical weight. “Never mind.”

“Brother, you’re up early,” Kasuka says mildly. 

“Yeah, well, we have guests,” Heiwajima says, blushing a little. “It’d be rude to keep them waiting.” 

Kasuka makes a non-committal noise into his tea. Heiwajima ignores him and goes over to the fridge. 

“Do your sisters like pancakes?”

A small pattering of footsteps sounds on the tile and a little voice sounds up, “Cake?”

“Look what you did,” Izaya says, “you summoned the demons.” 

“They’re not demons,” Heiwajima says, picking Mairu up and balancing her on his hip as he carries eggs to the counter. 

“You don’t live with them.”

Mairu burbles happily as Heiwajima bounces her up and down gently. “Are you a demon? I don’t think so, don’t listen to your brother, he’s mean.” 

Heiwajima sets her down on the counter near the mixing bowl, handing her a spoon. “Can you beat the eggs for me?”

Mairu attacks the egg like it’s her one and only purpose in life, the traitor. 

Unable to take more of this blatant display of family disloyalty, Izaya goes to find his favorite sister. She’s blinking confusion on the futon still, other half abandoning her in search of cake, but she lights up when she sees Izaya, making grabby hands to be lifted. That’s more like it. 

He even goes to lift her before remembering his ribs are hellishly sore, but remembers just in time to have a toddler settled around them, clinging to his neck.

Well.

Let it never be said that he never does anything for her. 

He carries his favorite sister back into the kitchen, where Heiwajima and Mairu are bonding over pancake batter. 

Kasuka is sitting at the kitchen table.

“Kasuka, do you mind watching the twins while I take Izaya to the hospital?” Heiwajima is saying, starting to ladle batter onto the stove.

“Who said you could be so familiar, hm?” Izaya says as he carries Kururi into the kitchen. 

“Oh, nothing, you’re just wearing my clothes and sleeping at my house and I just thought—”

“I’d be happy to watch the twins while you go to the hospital.” 

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” Izaya says, because it needs saying. 

Kasuka give him a flat look, but Kasuka doesn’t really give any other sort of look. “It’s always wise to check up on head wounds. Brother doesn’t and I think that speaks for itself.”

“Hey!”

“It would certainly explain a lot,” Izaya admits. 

_ “Hey!”  _

Kururi is curling up on his shoulder, watching the world quietly from her perch on Izaya’s hip. She’s a warm weight against his side, and his bruised ribs make sure that he can feel her every inhale and exhale.

Mairu apparently gets bored of the spoon and plunges both hands into the batter, swirling them around until the batter sloshes a bit over the sides. Heiwajima just gently pulls her hands out of the bowl, wipes them off with a towel, and settles her down to roam free on the kitchen floor.

“Do you like anything in your pancakes?”

“Cake!” both twins say, fixing on Heiwajima with laser-like intensity. 

“What do you mean? Do they come with fillings?”

“Have you never had a pancake before?” Heiwajima looks utterly scandalized. 

“I don’t really like sweet things.”

“You’re not  _ human _ ,” Heiwajima declares. 

“Says the one that can bench press a car.”

“I can’t bench press a car.”

“Have you tried?”

“…no. Well, not recently.”

“Why on earth were you trying to bench press a car?”

Kasuka answers. “If he could, it would mean he was an anime character.”

“He can’t be an anime character, his hair is brown.”

“Some protagonists have brown hair,” Kasuka says. 

“Yeah, sure, in harem anime,” Izaya looks around the kitchen. “I don’t see a harem.” 

“It’s a work in progress,” Heiwajima says, “I’ve got you, Mairu when she grows up—”

“Whoa, that’s a little, let’s say, morally gray there, senpai. Not sure I like you perving on my baby sister.”

“Oh my god, you would sell your sisters for a peanut.”

“I would not. I could get at  _ least  _ three peanuts. My haggling skills are legendary.”

“Jesus,” Heiwajima says, sliding some pancakes onto a plate. “Because that’s what was wrong with that sentence.”

“That’s why I corrected you, dumbass.” 

“Language, flea.”

“Aw, I was just trying to give you a cute nickname like you gave me, since you don’t like your other one.”

“Brother has a nickname?”

“Yes,” Izaya says gleefully.

“No,” Heiwajima says forcefully. “Look, food. Better shut the hell up and eat before I shove it down your throat.”

“Ooh, you know how I like it when—”

“ _ Oh my god shut up.” _

 

“I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

“You fell over trying to put on your pants.” 

“Why were you watching me put on my pants? You per—”

“I wasn’t,” Shizuo cuts him off with barely a blush. Damn. Well, it was fun while it lasted. “I just heard a loud crash and assumed.”

 

The doctor Izaya manages to see says that there’s “no permanent damage. Probably.” which is immensely reassuring and very clearly makes the trip to the hospital worth it, because the internet couldn’t have possibly told them that. 

“Shut  _ up,  _ it’s better to be safe than sorry. You can’t live without a head, you know.”

Then they actually have to go visit Tanaka and pick some sort of gift out of the disgustingly expensive gift shop.

“What about this?” Shizuo says, holding up a large stuffed bear that has ‘I’m sorry’ emblazoned across the stomach. 

“Last time I checked, Tanaka-senpai wasn’t a five year old girl. And that was probably made with slave labor in Malaysia for a fraction of the price they’re selling it for. Nothing says ‘I’m sorry’ like the product of human brutality.”

“Then what do you think we should get him?” Heiwajima, says, exasperated. “You said no to the card, the candy, the coloring book, the balloon…”

“I think that if he’s really your friend, your company and time should be sufficient. Everything else is replaceable, time can never be recalled.”

“Flowers it is,” Shizuo says, walking over to the pitiful display of sad looking carnations. 

“Carnations are funeral flowers. You can’t get those.” 

“What the hell is a carnation?”

“It’s the flower you’re admiring. They’re cheap and easy to dye and feature prominently in funeral arrangements. Why do you want to get Tanaka flowers, anyway? Are you cheating on me?”

“Jesus, there’s nothing to cheat on,” but Heiwajima puts the flowers back. “And technically, Tom-san was there first. If anything, I’d be cheating on him with  _ you _ .”

“I’m not sure how I feel about being the side chick,” Izaya says. “I’m really more of a main event, if you know what I mean.”

“What, that you’re high maintenance and demand constant attention? Yeah, I get what you mean.”

“I don’t constantly demand your attention,” Izaya reminds him. “It’s constantly thrust upon me.”

“That’s because you’re a constant disaster that needs constant minding.”

“You make me sound like a toddler.” 

“Aren’t you?”

“Do you have a thing for babies, Shizu-chan? First—”

“No.  _ No _ . Stop. Just,  _ no.” _

They’re allowed to leave the gift shop after that.

 

“Hello, Shizuo, Izaya-kun,” Tanaka says as they enter his room, setting aside a magazine. He doesn’t look like he should have been spending the past few days in the hospital, but Izaya supposes that’s  _ why _ you spend a few days in the hospital. 

“When are they gonna let you go?” 

“Monday, but I should be back in school by Tuesday. Mom wants me to stay home an extra day, you know how they are,” Tanaka says, smiling wryly. 

Shizuo nods, understanding, while something hard and cold finds its way into Izaya’s stomach. He knew he shouldn’t have eaten those pancakes, no matter what Shizuo said. Breakfast is excessive.

“Izaya has something to say to you,” Heiwajima says, clapping Izaya on the shoulder.

“Oh?” Tanaka says, quirking an eyebrow. Shizuo elbows Izaya in the side, not gently at all. Izaya grits his teeth as the bruises on his torso protest sharply and loudly. 

“Ah, yes,” Izaya says, once he’s recovered himself sufficiently. “I’m sorry that you were attacked by a gang. It was my fault. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

Tanaka doesn’t look surprised in the slightest. “Apology accepted.” Tanaka looks at Shizuo, “Shizuo, I’m all out of water, would you mind—”

“I’ll go get you some,” Shizuo says, hustling out the door.

As soon as he’s gone, Tanaka puts his face in his palm and sighs. Deeply. It’s the sound of a man who knows this bullshit well and anticipates more. “He means well, he really does. Do you know why he thinks that you’re completely responsible for all the gang activity in the city?”

Izaya shrugs. “No clue.” 

“You shouldn’t let him bully you like this,” Tanaka says, “I know he’s intimidating, but being responsible for gang attacks?” Tanaka shakes his head. “He’ll find anyway to make something make sense, won’t he?” 

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” Tanaka says, gesturing at himself, “but I’m black. It’s like he can’t really comprehend that I might be attacked simply because of that. He doesn’t really understand people at all. So, in his mind, it must be your fault, because he wasn’t with me when he was with you. He does it all the time, connecting two completely random events.” 

“Uh-huh,” Izaya says. 

Heiwajima bustles back into the room cradling five water bottles in his arms. 

“I didn’t know how much you would need,” he explains, dumping his arm load of bottles on the bed. 

“Um, thanks, Shizuo,” Tanaka says uncertainty, politely not mentioning the pitcher he could have had refilled. (What a dumbass.)

“It’s the least I could do. Izaya wouldn’t let me buy anything in the gift shop.” 

“It’s too expensive,” Izaya says, “and he only wanted to buy you flowers that meant ‘passionate love’ or ‘death.’”

Tanaka raises and eyebrow. “I see.”

Heiwajima turns an almost violent shade of red. “It’s not that— all the pretty ones were—”

Izaya puts a hand on Heiwajima’s shoulder. “It’s okay. At least you know that he’s already noticed you. No need for a love letter— _ ouch.  _ Watch it, I’m delicate.” 

Tanaka is watching them, but he’s smiling. “It’s good that you’ve made another friend, Shizuo.”

“We’re not— _ ow.  _ What did I  _ just  _ say?”

“You’re always delicate. How’s now any different?” 

“That’s just more reason for you to  _ not  _ try and break my ribs, you oaf.”

“I wasn’t trying to break your ribs, just trying to get you to shut up.” 

“Didn’t anyone teach you to use your words? Violence isn’t the answer.”

“But it  _ is _ a solution.”

“I thought you didn’t like violence. Were you lying to me? That’s not very nice.”

“I  _ don’t  _ like violence.” 

“Then don’t use it. It’s that simple.”

“It’s  _ not  _ that simple,” Heiwajima says, like the movements of his body are completely beyond him and his control. Maybe it is. Heiwajima doesn’t seem like the particularly intelligent type.

“Have you given more thought to dying your hair?” Tanaka says from the bed. 

Heiwajima runs his hands through his hair, as if that alone might change the color. “Yeah. I dunno, though. I’ve never had to dye my own hair before.”

“Generally, people get other people to do it,” Izaya says. “That’s why they have things like hair salons.”

Heiwajima nods thoughtfully. “Alright. We’ll pick some dye up on our way back.” 

“No, no. You misunderstand. I was neither volunteering nor endorsing that plan,” Izaya says, waving his hands to try and ward off Heiwajima’s stupid. “For all you know, it could just paint a bigger target on your back. Maybe there’s something to be said for blending in with the crowd.” 

“That would work better if Shizuo didn’t already have a reputation,” Tanaka says. “This way, he can capitalize on that. Build it up.”

That’s true. But still.

“It would finally allow you to ascend to anime-hood, senpai. Just like you always wanted!”

“I wouldn’t be an anime character.”

“Now all you need is a tragic backstory,” Izaya continues, blithely. “Maybe your entire family dies in a fire, or your mom dies in a hit and run and you swear to get revenge on all the evildoers in the city!”

Heiwajima goes quiet, looking more angsty and broody than usual, turning and leaving the room without another word.

Izaya looks at Tanaka. “What’s that all about.” 

Tanaka shrugs. “No clue. You should go apologize, though.”

Hm. He doesn’t know about that, but Heiwajima  _ is _ keeping his sisters hostage. And, more importantly, his phone.

Heiwajima is nowhere to be seen in the hallway, but he’s nothing but predictable, so Izaya takes the elevator to the roof. The hospital has a neat rooftop garden going, a few dead plants hanging to the edges. A few bird-shit encrusted tables here and there. It’s a real example of what urban gardening can be. 

And there, clinging to the anti-suicide fence, is Heiwajima, angsting over the city.

“Hey,” Izaya says as he approaches. Heiwajima doesn’t even turn to look, what a child. First he storms off, now he can’t even be assed to turn and look at Izaya? Childish. Immature. The luxury of those without responsibilities. 

“Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, so there can be no doubt. But Heiwajima continues to not acknowledge him. Ignore him, even. 

So Izaya shrugs and turns to go back to the elevator. He has no time for these games Heiwajima wants to play; he will not struggle for the other’s attention.

He gets all the way to elevator before he hears the heavy footsteps behind him.

“Ah, Shizu-chan. How nice to see you’ve decided to take notice of me.” 

“Aren’t you going to apologize?” Heiwajima says. “You came all the way up here to, what, fail?”

“Oh, no,” Izaya corrects. “I just don’t know how to get back to your house from here.”

“But you should apologize,” Heiwajima insists, with all the confusion and hurt of a kicked puppy. “You hurt me.”

“Hm,” Izaya says. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” Heiwajima says, staring at Izaya. “But that’s the best I’m going to get, isn’t it. Do you ever say what you mean?”

“Don’t insist I say something then get mad when I’m not sincere. You can’t have it both ways.” 

“You  _ should _ be sincere,” Heiwajima says, brow furrowed. 

“But I’m not. I don’t even know why you’re angry or upset or whatever little emotion your brain decided to spit out.”

The elevator dings, and Izaya and Heiwajima climb on. It’s a long, silent train ride back to Heiwajima’s house, the other apparently lost in thought. It must hurt. His brow is furrowed and everything and he seems to becoming increasingly frustrated the longer it continues.

“Being friends with you is hard,” Heiwajima says at last. “You’re complicated.” 

“I’m not,” Izaya protests. “I’m very straightforward, senpai, all I want is your attention and affection.” 

Heiwajima swats at his shoulder. “Knock that shit off. Did you see the look the sales clerk in the gift shop was giving us?”

He did. It was priceless.

“Not until you give me what I want, senpai.”

They find the twins and Kasuka playing Mario Kart. Well, Kasuka is playing Mario Kart. Kururi looks like she’s holding a calculator while Mairu crawls all over Kasuka, apparently trying to get up onto his head.

It’s when he’s dragging the twins out, one hand in each of his, that he swears he hears: “You don’t even know what you want,” as the door closes.

 

The duct-taped door is right where he left it, and a worryingly light push has the door swinging in. The bright sunlight makes the house seem darker than it is, like the light won’t dare to reach all the way in. It’s got an unused, musty smell that he’s never really noticed before, one that suggests dust and dirty laundry hidden in corners even if it looks cold and clinically clean. 

He resolves to call a maid service, right after he has the door fixed.

He picks up the receiver, considering. He hopes to sound like his father eventually, more of a deep rumble, but for the moment he sounds like a mirror of his mother, high and flighty. He’s told puberty is supposed to take care of that, full of diagrams and videos that caused the rest of the class to be unable to meet each other’s eyes for the rest of the day. 

A fascinating reaction to being reminded that your friends and classmates have genitals. He’s also told that  _ that  _ reaction will be flipped when they get to high school, being aware and hoping to get closer. Some of his classmates seem to be ahead of the curve, showing shy interest in each other and staring blatantly in hallways. He doesn’t see the appeal, but that’s considerations for another day. 

It’s a quick call to the handyman he found in the back of the phone book. 

“Hello,” he says, trying to put authority into his voice. “I need my front door replaced. How much will it be for the job?”

“ _ Good evening, ma’am. What kind of door you looking for?” _

It’s a relatively quick call, and he’s pretty sure he’s not being ripped off. If all goes well, he won’t have a gaping security problem by noon the next day.

Then it’s a call to a maid service. Simple, easy. A maid will be sent once a week on Wednesday until he cancels. Leave the payment on the kitchen counter. It’s not too much, nothing that will alert his parents, if anything will. The service even does laundry and makes beds. That’s two of his least favorite things, right off the list. 

Speaking of least favorite things, there’s a twin tugging on his pant leg. 

“Food,” she says pathetically, looking up at him with large puppy eyes.

“Well,” he says, clapping his hands together. “Let’s go buy some, shall we?”

 

He doesn’t know what the hell he was thinking. The twins are sitting in a shopping cart, clearly overwhelmed by all the options.  _ He’s  _ overwhelmed with all the options.

He picks up the nearest vegetable. It’s long and purple and he pretends to inspect it before putting it in his cart. 

Mairu picks it up and looks up at him, deeply unimpressed, as if to say, ‘do you even know what this is?’

Shut up. It’s not like she knows either. He’s sure he can do  _ something  _ with it. As soon as he figures out what it is. 

Oh, but look! Watermelon. He knows what that is. He holds it up to his ear and knocks against it. Yes, sounds like watermelon alright. He puts in the cart. Kumai also starts banging merrily on it. It’ll be the most tested watermelon in the store.

He buys tea and crackers and milk. He buys what proclaims to be chicken breast and more cup noodles. He buys instant coffee and fruit snacks in the shape of aliens. He buys food from the grocery store and it’s kind of exhilarating but mostly a pain in the ass, especially when he has to get home. 

The twins have decided they can walk, which theoretically should make his job easier.

But no, it’s like herding two spinning tops. He mourns the loss of his baby leashes. One tries to wander into traffic while the other tries to eat a rock. Mairu almost falls down a sewer. Izaya almost lets her. Kururi tries to eat a bush. 

It takes almost twice as long to get home from the grocery store as it took to get there, and Izaya’s ribs see to be considering quitting about halfway home. His arms are sore from carrying groceries. It’s almost a relief that a light push is all that’s necessary to open the front door.

Then he actually have to make the food. He sets the mystery vegetable and chicken out. He’s pretty sure you have to cook it, so he gets a pan out and brushes off the dust, slaps the chicken down the pan. It makes a wet sort of sound, unattractive and disgusting. 

Mairu pulls on his pant leg. “Hungry,” she says, putting a hand on her stomach. 

“Working on dinner,” Izaya says, gesturing to the stove, where the chicken is sizzling.

Mairu pulls a face. 

“Well, I’d like to see  _ you  _ cook dinner, then,” Izaya says. Mairu wanders off to go find some rocks to munch on or something.

Not that the chicken takes too long. It’s warm when he pokes it, so he puts it on a plate. But chicken is usually seasoned, right? He finds some soy sauce hanging around in the fridge. It’s got an expiration date somewhere around last Christmas, but it doesn’t really expire, right? He pours some on top of the chicken and goes about cutting it into cubes for his sisters to eat.

Except… the chicken still looks pink and squishy on the inside. That’s weird, the outside looked done. The chicken he gets at the convenience store doesn’t look like that. Must not be done yet. He puts it in the microwave to finish cooking, about three minutes should do, right?

Except around minute two, the most awful smell floods the kitchen, somewhere between gym socks and rotten fish. The chicken in the microwave still has the glossy pink color of rawness when he takes it out, and now it reeks of failure. He throws it out, turning on the kettle for cup noodles instead. Heiwajima made it look so easy. Must have been what he was making. Izaya could probably do omelettes too, if he tried. 

But he doesn’t want to. It’s just easier to have other people do it for you, isn’t it. Heiwajima would probably be willing to cook for him, if he played his cards right. Amp up the ‘my parents don’t love me’ card. The ‘I need protecting card.’ He’d never have to cook again. It’s worth considering, he thinks, as he pours the water into cup noodles. Never have to eat food full of preservatives again. At this rate, he’ll never age.

It has merit. Embracing the Poor Orphan role, constructing what Heiwajima is allowed to see. But then again, so does avoiding Heiwajima like the plague. But then he can’t observe Heiwajima up close and personal, can’t see the thin line that divides monsters and humans. Decisions, decisions. 

There’s something to be said for keeping someone so close they can’t tell they’re at arms length. He’s never tried it before, this could be a good place to start. See if he can twist and warp the perception of someone with beast-like instincts. If he can fool Heiwajima, he can fool anyone. Trial by fire.

Goal in mind, he serves cup noodles to his sisters for hopefully the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to max (as always) who puts up with my spelling and interesting choices in pronouns.


	13. Chapter 13

He actually hasn’t bothered to check his pockets, instead assuming the hard rectangle in his pocket is his phone. And, well, he isn’t  _ wrong _ . His phone is in his pocket, obviously having gone through a wash cycle along with his pants, if the delicate lilac scent is any indication, but there’s something else there too. 

It’s long and rectangular, and when he pulls it out, he knows exactly what it is. 

The handle is black and moderately fitted to a grip, but is otherwise smooth expect for a few dings here and there most likely from rough use.

There’s a button near the top. The blade springs free of the handle with a simple press. It’s not a particularly big or wicked looking blade. It’s maybe four inches, if that, straight and no-nonsense. It’s not impressive, but it’s left an impression on Mairu, hasn’t it? It didn’t need to be big or impressive to do damage. 

It’s harder to close than it is to open, needing a contortion of his fingers over the handle and blade to close it one-handed. Even then, the skin on his pointer finger gets caught in the mechanism, ripping the skin and making it bleed.

He does it again and again, until he can open and close it with his eyes closed. Until his fingers hurt with the strain and there’s a fair amount of blood smeared on the knife and around his hand. 

Then he switches the knife to his right hand, and opens the blade.

 

Monday morning, Mairu spontaneously decides that she wants to dress herself. 

“No,” she says to Izaya’s offering of a shirt, instead choosing one in bright orange to complement her green pants. Why does she even own green pants. Who bought those. Izaya certainly didn't, where are the clothes—

_ Shit. _

He dropped them. He dropped the bag of painstakingly gathered baby clothes. Now he's going to have to go back to the store and buy more and it's in Blood Red territory. He’s not sure he could survive. It's just all so much. 

He supposes he could go directly after school, not have to bring the twins. Or just go to the closer mall and accept that the twins will be wearing rare zebra pelts or what the fuck ever the ultra-rich deck their children in these days. Such is the danger of going to the tourist mall.

Mairu’s somehow managed to put her shirt on both inside out and backwards, and she slaps at his hands when he goes to take it off. 

“No.”

“Fine. I don't care. Look like you ran away from the circus, I don’t care.”

And damn it if she doesn’t actually attempt to run away as soon as they’re out the door, staunchly refusing to have anything to do with Izaya. It’s absolutely maddening to have to chase a toddler around the streets of Tokyo, especially with the other clinging happily to one hand. He barely manages to herd them gently into a bus and through the door of the center. It’s almost a relief to see the too-happy daycare workers.

“Someone’s on an independent streak,” the aide says, a smile playing about her lips like this is amusing and something to be celebrated instead of frustrating and tiring. 

“Ha, yeah,” Izaya says.

“Your parents must have their hands full,” the worker continues, still with that damnable smile. 

“Oh, they sure do.”

 

The whispers start as soon as he enters the hallway. People are so stupid.  They don't realize for all the physics problems they have to compute and crunch that sound travels so far.

“I heard he got in a fight with Heiwajima,” he hears, awe clear in the voice. He doesn’t recognize it. Must be an upperclassman. 

“And he’s  _ still standing?”  _ There’s a heavy undercurrent of disbelief, but he has witnesses. Heiwajima was kind enough to deck him on the front steps, in front of everybody. 

“I heard he’s with Blood Reds,” he hears. This voice he recognizes. It’s Tomoko from class, about two desks over. 

“Really? I heard they have a hit out on him,” another voice says, unfamiliar and male. Huh. She must have moved on to another boy who doesn’t know she likes the expensive things in life. 

“I heard he’s with the yakuza,” another voice says, this one hushed and harsh. It’s still familiar, muted as it is. It’s Suzuki from elementary school.

“Whoa, really?”

“Didn’t you know him from elementary school?” 

Those are the rumors that are going to have credence, the ones from his trusted confidant. The ones that knew him well.

He can feel eyes burning into him all throughout first period, into second. The whispers follow him through the hallways. And they only grow in scope. 

They stop whispering and stare when they can see him, but start right back up again when they can’t. Because sound only travels as far as you can see, right? 

Apparently the fading bruise on his jaw and that he generally looks like shit gets him street cred. Whatever that is. Why looking like he  _ lost  _ a fight increases it, he’ll never know. But the masses can be unpredictable, can’t they?

By the time the small break in the morning hits, things have mutated. 

He’s barely outside the classroom when an upperclassman saunters up, forced calm and casualness heavy in his body. 

He places a bet for an obscene amount on a team that Izaya’s never heard of before, but it seems to break some sort of dam. All of a sudden, he’s swamped with those trying to throw their money at him. He doesn’t ask why, just smirks and takes it. Reasons tend to out themselves eventually. 

It doesn’t take long at all. He just sulks a little outside the most popular area for eating lunch. It’s a hot topic. 

Not only is his aligned with the yakuza, he  _ is  _ yakuza, according to dear Suzuki. His little gambling ring is backed with Yakuza money and not self-sustaining, like it actually is. Clearly, this seems to increase confidence in his operation  rather than decrease it. Maybe the idea that he loses a few fingers if he fails in returning money is adequate insurance. Maybe it thrills others to know what they’re doing is one-hundred percent illegal. Gives a little thrill that the mundanity of everyday living can’t provide.

He’s not quite sure and doesn’t really care at the moment. He’ll investigate later, when he has more resources and time at his disposal. Right now, he has a date with the school monster, and he really shouldn’t keep him waiting. It’s the last day without Tanaka, after all, and the day after what could be considered an intimate arrangement. It’s the best time to strike, the best time to make a move. 

The best time to manipulate information to his will. 

He takes a deep breath, ribs protesting slightly, and climbs up the stairs. He feels his features harden as they settle into pure neutrality before he begins to make subtle arrangements. He lets the corners of his mouth droop a bit, but not too much. He lets his eyelids slip just the teensiest fraction lower. His shoulders come forward into a slouch, but just the slightest. 

The perfect picture of  hidden unhappiness, with the slightest signs to be found, if you’re looking.

Heiwajima will be looking. 

Speak of the devil himself, he’s already on the roof, as is his wont. He’s facing away from the door, shoulders tense and tight. The line of tension carries through his entire body, making him rigid and inflexible. 

He does turn to face Izaya, though, and his shoulders relax a bit. Maybe he heard his footsteps or smelled him on the wind or something equally incomprehensible. 

“Hey,” Heiwajima greets. “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

Now that’s interesting. Compound on his uncertainty. 

“But you’d be so lonely without me, senpai,” Izaya says, putting a flirtatious lilt into his words. There. Offhand and not out of character, but reminds him that Izaya’s one of his only friends. A solid reminder that  _ Heiwajima  _ needs  _ him.  _

Heiwajima shuffles his feet a little, glancing at the ground, before reaching down and pulling something out of his bag.

“Here,” he says, shoving it into Izaya’s hands before he can see what it is.

“My mom’s always wanted a girl,” Shizuo says, casually and unhelpfully and out of nowhere.

“It’s always hard when you don’t meet your parent’s expectations,” Izaya says, staring warily at the sandwich he was handed, turning it over in his hands. 

“No, I’m saying that she’d probably love to meet your sisters.”

“That’s nice.” Make him work for it. Going from hating his help to pursuing it wholeheartedly is suspicious. 

“So you should bring them when you come over for dinner tonight.”

Izaya doesn’t look away from the sandwich. It doesn’t have a label on it anywhere. The cling wrap instead of a plastic bag suggests it was homemade. The fact that it’s not even slightly crushed suggests that Heiwajima put thought and care throughout his  _ entire day _ about this sandwich. “Who said I’m coming over for dinner tonight?” 

“I did.” 

“What if I don’t want to?”

“Why would you not want to come to dinner?” Shizuo sounds confused. Poor thing, he probably can’t comprehend why someone would turn down free food.

He’s going to go. Having dinner with Heiwajima and his family will increase their feelings of closeness by a factor of at least two. Maybe Heiwajima hopes to incorporate him and his sisters into his family. Maybe that’s his new strategy for helping. It’s not a bad one, give the poor orphan a place to feel like home, but it does rely on the cooperation of the parents. Maybe the Heiwajimas don’t spend enough time around home for it to really matter. Maybe they don’t know their son wants to adopt a stray and Heiwajima is relying on a sense of goodwill and friendliness. 

Whatever it is, it requires some damage control. He desperately needs to meet these people and appear well-adjusted and normal so that when Heiwajima slips and wants to call child services, it looks like he’s being paranoid. 

But still.

“It’s nice to be asked to do things, senpai. Not told to do them.”

Heiwajima puffs out a breath and runs a hand through his hair, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a lollipop. 

“Would you like to come to dinner tonight? My mom wants to meet you.”

“Why, I’d  _ love  _ to, Shizu-chan. But meeting your parents so early in our relationship? Things are getting pretty serious,” Izaya says, fluttering his eyelashes. 

“Oh my  _ god,  _ stop that,” Heiwajima says, shoving at Izaya’s shoulder. “You know it’s not like that.” 

“Oh, do I?”

“Yes!”

“Oh,” Izaya says, grabbing at his chest, “that wounds me. I’ve been thinking all this time— but no, you’ve just been playing with my heart.”

“Oh my  _ god, _ ” Heiwajima says, but he’s smiling around his lollipop. “You’re  _ impossible.” _

_ “ _ You love it,” Izaya counters. “You like the challenge.” 

“I  _ don’t,”  _ Heiwajima protests, still smiling. “You’re just like a flea, annoying and impossible to get rid of.”

“More like a vampire, a creature of the night. But you’ve already invited me into your house. Guess you’re screwed now, huh, Shizu-chan?”

“Guess I’ll just have to keep you forever,” Heiwajima agrees. “And cook things with massive amounts of garlic.” 

“How’s that different from now? I could barely eat the macaroni for all the garlic in it.”

“It didn’t have any garlic in it!”

“So that’s why it tasted off,” Izaya says thoughtfully, putting a finger to his lips.

“Oh my god, shut up and eat your sandwich.” 

“I dunno, Shizu-chan, does it have garlic in it? Maybe you’re trying to poison me.”

“Then give it the fuck back,  _ I’ll  _ eat it.” 

But Izaya’s hardly going to punish good behavior. This is the behavior he wants, after all, you don’t hit a dog for fetching the newspaper. 

“That’s called Indian giving, Shizu-chan.” 

“That’s  _ racist. _ ”

Izaya shrugs. “Maybe. It’s what my grandmother says.” He pauses. “So it’s definitely racist.”

“Whatever,” Heiwajima says, “you gonna eat it? Don’t waste it.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to eat it.” Izaya takes a bite, just to prove his point. It’s actually pretty good, for a cold sandwich. No traces of garlic to be found, either. 

“How is it?” Heiwajima says, not looking at Izaya. But judging from the tension along his side, he’s trying very hard not to turn and look. He’s invested. He might have even made it himself.

The second bite isn’t as good as the first, far too dry. It sucks all the moisture out of Izaya’s mouth. 

“It’s fine,” he says through his mouthful of sawdust.

“Oh, good.” Heiwajima is shooting for causal, but he misses by a good twenty feet. His shoulders are slumping with released tension and he’s looking out over to the street again. 

“Wanna go to the mall today? I hear there’s supposed to be some sort of event going on. Might be fun.”

“Because the last time I went turned out so well.”

“What happened the last time you went? Did nobody realise your inherent specialness and refuse to move out of your way and generally treated you like another member of the crowd?” 

“No,” Izaya says, grabbing the edge of his shirt, “this happened.”

It’s still shocking. The last set of bruises have resolved themselves, and others have started to turn a pale green. He looks molten and sickly, especially where the bruises brush up against pale skin.

Heiwajima sucks in a breath, reaches a hand out before he thinks better of it, then drops it back against his side. “So that’s why you were over there. I had wondered.”

“What, thought I  _ plotted _ getting the shit beat out of me near your house?”

Heiwajima turns a little pink. “Well,  _ no,  _ but—”

“You’re learning,” Izaya says, pulling his shirt back down to cover himself. “I’m so  _ proud.  _ They grow up so fast.” 

“Becoming paranoid of others isn’t something to  _ aspire  _ to.”

“Neither is blindly trusting others.”

“It’s not  _ blind  _ trust.”

“It’s, what, reliance on the idea that humans are all inherently good? Isn’t that blind trust?”

“It’s not  _ that—” _

“Or do you put so much faith in your little fists of fury that you’re certain you can get out of any situation by punching it?”

Heiwajima goes pink again. “Well—”

“You  _ do,”  _ Izaya chirps. “Oh, that’s great. Don’t worry, senpai, I’ll protect you from any problems you can’t punch.”

“ _ You’re _ my only problem,” Heiwajima groans. 

“And you punched me quite spectacularly. Good job, senpai. You really set me straight.” Let him marinate in that guilt for a while. Bake at 350. Nice Guilt Roast.

What the hell? It’s like eating a sandwich has actually made him  _ more  _ hungry. He knew his whole ‘three meals’ thing was a bad idea.

 

Heiwajima meets him just outsidethe school gate, apparently deaf to the rumors that only grow in volume when Izaya joins him. 

“Still ready for our adventure into the hallowed halls of capitalism?”

“You mean the shopping mall?”

“That’s what I said.” 

“I translated from pretentious assweed.” 

“Ouch.” Izaya puts a hand over his heart. “Do you think I’m pretentious, senpai? I prefer to think of myself as an intellectual.” 

“Lying to ourselves is one of the easiest things to do.”

“Wow, you’re on a roll today. My intelligence must be catching.” 

“No, it’s just a self-defense mechanism from your bullshit.” 

They bicker the entire way to the mall, little inconsequential things. It’s fun. Izaya almost forgets that they’re smack in the middle of Blood Red territory. Except, he really can’t, because he feels like the color red is constantly on the edge of his vision, waiting in the corners. 

He can feel the color becoming more prominent almost as soon as they get off the train. 

“Is that the kid?” he hears one say to another as they walk past. 

Him, or Heiwajima?

“Can’t tell, I mean, it looks like him. But a lotta kids look like him. Better safe than sorry?” 

“I dunno. Doesn’t look like much.” 

Heiwajima, then. Maybe there is something to be said for having him dye his hair. 

“Hey, senpai, did you still want my help with your hair?” Izaya says, trying for idle. 

Heiwajima give him a look. “I thought you said that was a bad idea.” 

Izaya shrugs. “I dunno. Maybe you owe it to others to put a caution sign on yourself. Make sure they know what they’re getting into.”

Heiwajima is looking at him suspiciously out of the corner of his eye. “Sure. And what's the real reason.”

“That is the real reason!”

“Uh huh. Sure. Question exchange. You tell me why you suddenly want me to dye my hair and I'll tell you what I've told my parents about you.”

Izaya fights the urge to gape at him, tightening his jaw in response.

“That's blackmail.” Izaya pauses to wipe away an imaginary tear. “I'm so proud.”

“That's nice. Now answer the damn question.”

Izaya sighs deeply. “In the end, Tanaka-senpai was right. It increases your notoriety and visibility.”

“That's it?”

“That's it. What did you expect, that I'd suddenly and overwhelming had a thing for blondes?”

“I'm not dying the carpet to match the drapes for you.”

Izaya is. Can’t even. Wow. Didn’t expect that. “Don't even.”

“Why not?” Heiwajima is smirking now, “turnabout is fair play.”

“You don’t know what monster you'll unleash. You're playing with fire.”

“At best, a teeny match,” Heiwajima counters, holding up only his thumb and forefinger. 

“A small spark can start a fire.”

“Not if it doesn't have a place to burn.” 

“How poetic, senpai. Are you saying my love is unrequited? I'll just have to try harder, you'll love me in the end.” 

“That's not concerning in the slightest,” Heiwajima says, dry as the desert. 

“Not if my love is  _ pure,”  _ Izaya mock whispers, opening his eyes up wide and leaning deep into Heiwajima’s personal space before snapping back. Heiwajima doesn't even flinch. “Now are you going to hold up your end of the bargain, or what?”

“Oh, sure.” Heiwajima lifts a single shoulder. “I told them your parents are traveling this week and you get lonely.” 

That's… it? Fuck, he thought Heiwajima might know the whole story, but maybe he gave him too much credit?

“As you said, it's easiest to lie with the truth, right?” Heiwajima continues, and is that a touch of sarcasm in his voice? Anger, maybe? “Don't get me wrong,” he continues. “I think you need help, but Kasuka told me that it's only helpful if you think it is. And. And that you might be right to be afraid of social services.”

Izaya… doesn't quite know what to do with that. 

“Ah,” he says. “How insightful.”

“Yeah. Kasuka’s always been like that.” Heiwajima’s face is going soft with affection, his mouth curving up into a small smile. 

“That's nice. My sister farted on my face yesterday.” Izaya says, flat. 

“They'll grow into loving you,” Heiwajima says as they step into the food court. 

“Are you seriously hungry  _ again?  _ You just ate!”

“Yeah, like three hours ago.”

“No wonder you're so fat.”

“I'm not fat, I'm a normal weight and more than bones.”

“Not if you keep eating like this,” Izaya says as Shizuo orders a burger and a milkshake. 

“Fuck off.”

“Tetchy, Shizu-chan. Don't worry, I like you at any weight.”

“How kind of you,” Heiwajima says, taking a bite of his burger. 

“What kind of event did you say they were having here?” Izaya asks. “I haven’t really seen anything.”

“There was supposed to be something for Children’s Day. I dunno, I saw signs for it.”

“That was last week.” 

Heiwajima blinks. “Oh? Was it? Oh, well. We’re here anyway. Might as well hang around.”

“Actually,” Izaya says. “I need to get clothes for the twins.”

“Wouldn’t that be easier with the twins here? You know, for sizing and stuff.”

“It is absolutely  _ not _ easier with the twins here. I already know what size, just need to grab in and go.”

Heiwajima shrugs. “Sure. Whatever.” 

Thankfully, shopping assistant from hell isn’t there, but the shop still smells cloyingly of shit hastily covered with industrial cleaning spray. 

“What size are you looking for?” Heiwajima asks. 

“2T.” 

Heiwajima finds three shirts and grabs them, all in the same color. “Okay, done.” 

“Wow. That’s certainly one way to shop.” 

“It’s the best way to shop. If you love something, wear it.” 

“Wearing school uniforms must be a blessing for you.” 

It’s easy to grab a few sets of clothes when there aren’t tiny terrors zipping around your feet. It’s almost painless, even as they walk through a throng of Blood Reds congregating right outside the train station. 

“What kind of dye did you have in mind?” Izaya asks once they’re in the train. 

“I dunno. Whatever’s cheapest. Is there a drugstore near your house?”

Izaya raises an eyebrow. “Sure. But I don’t think they’ll sell condoms to—”

“Oh my god, for the hair dye,” Heiwajima says, looking around to see if anyone heard. “I wanna do it at your house.”

“Sure. Ruin all my towels. That’s fine, senpai.” 

“No, I’m just not sure how my mom will take it.” 

“So implicate me in the crime before I have a chance to prove myself. Nice.” 

“ _ No,  _ well,  _ maybe,”  _ Heiwajima splutters. 

“Sure, senpai. I’ll help with your little teenage rebellion.”

“Alright,” Heiwajima says, settling back down into his seat. “Cool.” 

 

There’s chintzy music playing in the drug store. 

“Just  _ pick one  _ already. I’m getting old just standing here,” Izaya says, “I’ll be in the  Geriatrics looking at adult diapers if you need me.” 

“Shut up,” Heiwajima says without real heat. “They’re  _ different. _ ” 

“Not really. They’re all hair bleach.”

“But do I want  _ super  _ blond or  _ beach  _ blond? Is there even a  _ difference? _ ”

“I think you want super blond, like super saiyan, like the anime char—  _ ouch,  _ not the ribs!”

“Sorry,” Heiwajima says, actually sounding slightly contrite. But he does finally choose a box. “Do we need the weird bowl things?”

“You mean the things that are hanging right in the aisle along with some nice suspicious rubber gloves? Probably. I'd hate to injure my delicate hands.” And more importantly get bleach into the cuts at the base of his fingers. That sounds like a fantastically poor idea. It sounds like a poisoning waiting to happen.

In the end, they buy rubber gloves despite Heiwajima’s eye rolling and hair dye and Izaya puts a box of condoms on the belt to be a shit. The cashier doesn’t notice, but Heiwajima throws them at Izaya’s head as they leave. 

“What if you want the carpet to match the drapes? Gotta protect the—  _ ow.” _

“You aren’t funny!”

“You don’t have to hit me. Use your  _ words _ .”

“Words don’t seem to get through to you,” Heiwajima growls. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again to max, my beta. and happy new year to everyone!


	14. Chapter 14

“Is your front door different?”

“How astute of you. It certainly is,” Izaya says. It’s a completely different color and everything.

“What was wrong with your old one?”

“Oh, you know. Gotta keep things chic and modern.”

“Seriously?”

“No. You broke the last one, senpai. Be more careful with this one, yeah?” Izaya reaches to the top of the door frame, stretching up on his toes to where the new set of keys should have been left, but he can’t quite reach. Puberty hasn’t seen to bestow him with those final few inches as of yet.

“Here,” Heiwajima says, and that’s all the warning Izaya gets before he’s grabbed by his hips and lifted into the air. The good news is the keys are there and now definitely in his reach. The bad news is he feels like a fucking kitten dangling pathetically from a tree. 

“Put me down before I fart in your face.”

“I dunno,” Heiwajima says, and Izaya doesn't even have to see his face to hear the smirk. “I think I like you like this.”

“You like being eye level with my ass? Why, Shizu-chan—”

His return to the ground is jarring and immediate.

“Why do you have to make everything like that,” Heiwajima complains. 

Izaya snickers as he fits the key into the lock. “Because you just make it so much  _ fun. _ ”

The door swings smoothly open on the new hinges. It's a good job, the door doesn't creak at all like it used to. 

“I’d give you the tour, but you've already been here before. So,” Izaya throws his arms wide, encompassing the whole of the house in one sweep. “Make yourself at home. We have milk now.”

“Good for you,” Heiwajima says drily. “Basic shopping expeditions. You’re really moving up in the world.” 

“Those are dangerous things  say to the person that’ll be dyeing your hair.”

“Why? Are you saying you’re not up to the challenge? Is it too much for you?”

Izaya sends Heiwajima a withering eye. “Your attempts at manipulation need work, Shizu-chan.”

“I thought I was doing okay.” 

“Manipulation need to be subtle. It’s a fine art, not a hammer to smash things with.”

“Does it really matter as long as it works?”

“Yes. It’s the difference between kicking a door down and picking a lock. One leaves damage that can be seen and hated. The other is minimal damage.”

“But they lead to the same thing, breaking and entering. Which isn’t good.”

Izaya waves a hand. “Never mind that—”

“No, it’s the whole point of the thing. What does the means matter if the end isn’t good?” Heiwajima says, opening the fridge. “Hey, you really do have milk.”

“Why would I lie about having milk?”

“I dunno. You seem the sort.” Heiwajima is rooting through the cabinets. “Do you have any glasses? Why is there an eggplant in here?”

Ah, so that’s what that thing is.

“Because I intend to eat it.”

“With what? Do you even know  _ how  _ to cook an eggplant?”

“Same way you cook everything else,” Izaya says, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorway. “You apply heat.”

“Sure, smartass. Let me know how that turns out for you.” 

“Glasses are in the cabinet to your left.”

Heiwajima nods acknowledgment and opens the cabinet, pulling out a cup. “Do you want some?”

“Milk? No, I hate it.”

“Then why’d you buy it?”

Izaya doesn’t like that tone. It says that it thinks it knows something and intimates something else.

“I live with two toddlers. They drink it.”

“Uh-uh.” Heiwajima is smirking. Why is he smirking? Does he think he bought the milk for him? That’s not even  _ close  _ to being true. Izaya bought it because it’s a common household ingredient. Should he pretend that he bought it for Heiwajima? Would that win him points? Would it undermine his cause? 

Let him think what he will. It doesn’t matter. 

“Why the milk fixation? Is it some Freudian substitute for your mother’s—”

“Freud. That explains  _ so much  _ about you.”

Izaya lifts an eyebrow. “You know who Freud is?” 

Heiwajima scowls. “Of course I do. What do you think, I live under a rock?”

Izaya pretends to hesitate for just long enough for Heiwajima’s scowl to deepen. “Well—”

“Jesus, you think I’m  _ stupid.” _

“Stupid isn’t the word I’d use.” 

“No,” Heiwajima agrees, “you’d use some word like ‘vacuous’ or ‘cretinous.’”

“Wow. Look who’s been doing their homework!” 

“I don’t know why you think I’m stupid,” Heiwajima complains as he closes the fridge door. “I haven’t even done anything in a while.” 

“So you  _ used  _ to do stupid things?”

Heiwajima doesn’t even blush. If Izaya feels any disappointment— Well. He doesn’t, so case closed. 

“Doesn’t everybody? It’s part of growing up.”

“I haven’t done stupid things.” 

“Then you haven’t grown up.”

“Or maybe I was never young.”

Heiwajima shakes his head. “We’re young whether we want to be or not. We choose to grow up.”

“Is that what you think, Shizu-chan?” Izaya says, quietly. 

“Yeah,” Heiwajima says, equally as quiet. 

“Do you think that some of us never choose to grow up?”

“Yeah. I also think that some of us choose to grow up too early,” Heiwajima looks him straight in the eye. He’d never think that such a warm color could be ‘piercing,’ he’s always thought that was reserved for cool, dark colors. But he realizes then that it’s not due to a color. It’s due to an  _ intensity.  _ It’s a quality of the gaze itself. “Which one do you think you are?”

“Shouldn't that be obvious, Shizu-chan?” Izaya says, and if the first few words come out shaky, he’s ironed them out by the end of the sentence.

“Is it?” Heiwajima says. His tone is flat, and Izaya can hear the judgement in every syllable. 

Izaya grabs a chair from the kitchen table and drags it across the floor, the sound harsh and shrill as nails against a chalkboard. But it breaks the odd tension in the room into a million tiny little pieces.

“So you ready to complete your transformation into a butterfly?” Izaya says.

“Probably shouldn’t use bleach around where you make food,” Heiwajima says. 

“That’s ridiculous. You use bleach to clean the areas where you make food.” 

“Not at hair-bleaching strength.”

“I dunno, maybe it is. You could have saved a fair bit of money just dunking your head into a bucket of bleach instead of—”

“That sounds like a really bad idea.”

Izaya shrugs. “If anyone could walk away from it, it’d be you.”

 

They end up in the bathroom, with Heiwajima straddling the toilet backwards so Izaya can reach his hair, a towel wrapped around his shoulders like a particularly pathetic cape. 

“There’s no going back, senpai,” Izaya says lightly, hands in gloves and brush in hand. “You sure?” 

Heiwajima shifts on the toilet. “I’m sure.” 

“You can’t undo this. You have to wait  months and months for your hair to grow back. You can’t—”

“Oh my  _ god _ , just do it.” 

“So impatient,” Izaya says, taking a lock of hair in his hands. It seems like it’d be easiest to work from the bottom up. Heiwajima has a lot of hair, and it’s pretty long, brushing against his collar and curling slightly at the ends. It takes a minor bit of wrangling, but Izaya’s able to find a rhythm, working from top to bottom. It’s almost soothing, the rhythm of the brushstrokes against hair when he gets into it. He tries to get as close to the roots as possible, without Heiwajima complaining about chemical burn, but he’s sitting still and quiet on the toilet the whole time, seemingly content to let Izaya work on his hair.

“And, done,” Izaya says, shattering the silence that had fallen around them. “The box says to let it sit for a forty minutes. What do you want to do in the meantime?”

He sees Heiwajima’s shoulders rise and fall. “I dunno. What do you wanna do?”

“Could do homework, be good students,” Izaya suggests. “There’s TV. I have books, if you know how to read.” 

“What do you mean  _ if? _ ” 

“Well, I’d hate to assume—” 

“You little shit. I have to do homework.”

“Your wish is my command.” 

 

It’s interesting, watching Heiwajima do homework. He’ll sit for several seconds, staring at the paper like the force of his gaze alone can make it yield answers. He’ll reach up to tug on his hair, but the sting of the bleach makes him put his hand down just as fast. Eventually, he does look up. He frowns when he sees Izaya watching him. 

“What you looking at?”

“Someone struggling with their homework.”

“Why don’t you struggle with your own?”

Izaya shrugs with one shoulder. “I’m done.” 

“You can’t be done,” Heiwajima protests. “We’ve only been here for— shit, half an hour.” 

“It wasn’t that hard. Besides, the box says we have to rinse your hair out or you might go bald.”

Heiwajima makes an aborted move to touch his hair, before putting his hand back down and scowling. “It does  _ not.” _

“It might. Did you actually bother to read it?” 

Heiwajima turns a little pink.

“Your trust in me is touching, it really is.”

“Shut  _ up. _ ”

 

“Just lean back against the tub and put your head over the side,” Izaya says. “Or you could just strip down and—”

“Oh my god,” Heiwajima says, leaning back on to the lip of the tub, tipping his head over. “Why are you like this?”

“What? Fun? Intelligent? Witty? It’s just my nature.”

“You’re perverted, that’s what you are.”

There’s really no not awkward way to rinse Heiwajima’s hair without putting his arm in his face.

“Your arm is in my  _ face.”  _

“I know. It’s part of getting the dangerous chemicals out.” 

“Could you maybe do that  _ without _ hitting my nose?”

“Fine,” Izaya snaps. He swings one leg over Heiwajima’s lap, straddling him so his chest is pressed against Heiwajima’s. It’s actually much easier to reach this way, easier to run his fingers through Heiwajima’s hair while holding the shower head in the other.

“I think you might need another round of bleach,” Izaya says idly. “You’re still a bit yellow.” 

Heiwajima is silent, and Izaya rocks back on his heels to get a look at his face. Shizuo’s eyes are closed, but he doesn’t look peaceful. There are lines of tension radiating out from the edges of his mouth and from the corners of his eyes. His hands are fisted down by his sides. “Shizu-chan?”

Heiwajima’s eyes fly open, fixing on Izaya at once. Heiwajima licks his lips. “Sorry, what?”

“Your hair,” Izaya repeats slowly. “Is still yellow. I’d say you’d do well for another round of bleach.”

“Oh.” Heiwajima blinks. “No, that’s fine.”

Izaya rocks back further and unfolds himself gracefully to his feet, peeling off the gloves as he goes. “What, not going for the pale, platinum locks?”

“No,” Heiwajima says, coming to look in the mirror alongside Izaya. “This is fine.” 

Izaya grabs a fresh towel out from the cupboard under the sink, reaching up on tip toes to sling it up and around Heiwajima’s dripping hair and rubs vigorously. It doesn’t seem to do much but create a puffy cloud of hair and Heiwajima looking a lot like an affronted kitten.

Even with the water darkening his hair, it’s obviously much brighter, will probably resolve itself to the color of sunshine when it’s fully dry.

The effect it has on Shizuo’s face is something else. Instead of highlighting the bags under his eyes and brooding look like his darker hair did, it makes his eyes seem lighter, like a warm hazel instead of a light brown. It makes his face look more angular, sharper. It brightens his whole face, really, makes him look more open. More cheerful.

“It suits you,” Izaya says after a long moment. 

“Do you think?” Shizuo says, reaching a hand up to touch a lock of hair.

“Yeah. You’re finally the anime character you’ve always wanted to me.” 

Shizuo bumps his hip against Izaya’s gently, still fascinated with playing with his hair. “Shut up.” 

“Should I leave you and your reflection alone?” Izaya teases as Shizuo continues to stare. 

“What? Oh. No.” Shizuo turns away and looks at Izaya. “We should probably start heading over to my house. My mom will be home soon.” 

“Sure, we’ll have to stop and get the twins.”

“Is it okay that you left them this long?”

“Oh, sure, the center doesn't close until around eight.”

“That's not what I meant.”

Izaya pretends not to hear him, swinging his backpack over his shoulder instead. “Let’s get going, Shizu-chan, or we’ll miss the bus.”

“You're bringing your backpack?”

Izaya blinks at him. “Sure.” It’s an ingrained force of habit, really, but Heiwajima doesn’t need to know that. 

“What for?”

“Well, if you’re that insistent, I could leave it behind.”

“I don’t really care if you take it, I just wanted to know why.”

“Because I  _ want  _ to, that’s why. Come on. The twins’ll be raising hell at this point.”

Heiwajima trails him out the door. “What?! You said it was fine!”

“Suffering builds character.”

 

Heiwajima's house smells like cooking food, a bit like garlic and onions and a little like meat. 

“I'm home,” Heiwajima calls, adjusting his grip on Mairu so he can slide his backpack off his shoulder. 

“Did you bring your friend?” comes a warm, distinctly feminine voice. Then she shuffles around the corner, wielding a spatula and wearing a pink frilly apron. She is, without a doubt, Heiwajima’s mother. She gave the shape of her eyes and her slight frame to her sons, the warm brown to Shizuo. She has the beginnings of laugh lines radiating out from the corners of her eyes.

She smiles when she catches sight of Izaya. “Look, honey, it's the mystical friend.”

“What?” Comes a more masculine voice. “He exists?”

“ _ Mom, _ ” Heiwajima says, turning pink. 

“You never bring friends home, sweetie. We’re just curious. Oh my, what's that you've done to your hair?”

Heiwajima lifts a hand to his head. “I dyed it.”

“Huh. You didn't do such a bad job. Oh! Are those the little sisters! Kururi and Mairu, right?” 

“Yes, ma'am,” Izaya says.

“And you must be Izaya-kun! We’ve heard so much about you!” Heiwajima’s mother says, smile not wavering. If anything, it’s brightened. Must have been nice things.

“Shizuo, dear, would you mind setting the table? Or will all the bones in your arms break if you lift too many plates?”

Heiwajima grumbles and shuffles into the kitchen. Break his arms from lifting plates? Do they know what their son gets up to?

“Brother got injured a lot when he was younger,” Kasuka says, coming around a corner, taking Mairu from Heiwajima. “Wanna play Mario Kart?”

“Um, sure.”

“Shizuo, when you’re done get your guest a drink!” Heiwajima’s mother says. “I’m sorry, Izaya-kun. Is this little Mairu-chan? Or perhaps Kururi-chan?” 

“This one’s Kururi,” he says, bouncing her slightly. 

“Oh! She’s so cute,” she coos. Kururi ducks her face into Izaya’s neck, trying to hide from the scary lady. “Oh, she’s so  _ shy _ .”

“Mairu’s a bit more outgoing.”

“Mom, Mario Kart,” Kasuka reminds her.

“Oh, yes, of course. I’ll leave you two to it.” And with that, she bustles back into the kitchen. 

“Come on,” Kasuka says, leading him back into the house. “Brother isn’t allowed to play since that one time he threw a controller through the TV.”

“You mean into, right?”

Kasuka looks at him. “That’s how it got through it.” 

“I see.” 

The devil himself comes to join them as soon as the controllers are passed out, plucking Kururi off of Izaya’s lap. 

“I wish  _ I  _ could play,” he says meaningfully.

“You know why you can’t.”

Heiwajima— god, he’s  _ surrounded _ — snorts. “It was Rainbow Road! That’s rage inducing for anybody!” 

“Nobody else put a hole through the wall after playing it,” Kasuka says neutrally. “Or snapped a controller playing Donkey Kong or lifted a couch during—”

“Fine,” Heiwajima snaps, and goes back to brooding silently on the couch, occasionally trying to give Izaya Super Helpful Tips and be a backseat driver.

Izaya’s started coming out around third when there’s the call for, “Dinner! Boys, you better wash your hands!”

Dinner is actually pretty good, all things considered. Shizuo comes by his brooding honestly, his father sitting as a silent presence at the table most of the time. Shizuo’s mother provides most of the chatter, keeping up a fair stream of conversation about life, the state of the government, how cute the twins are, Shizuo’s new hairstyle, and how’s school? 

Izaya tries to respond as politely as he can, and she rewards him each time with a small smile that reaches her eyes and crinkles her laugh lines. 

Eventually, she shoos everyone away. “Go entertain your friend, Shizuo. Kasuka can help me with the dishes tonight. Maybe we’ll even have some to use for tomorrow left over! I’m kidding, sweetie. Go play with your friend.” 

“Sorry,” Heiwajima says, once they’re safely hidden away in his room. “She can be a bit much.”

Izaya doesn’t say anything. 

“Anyway,” Heiwajima continues. “What do you wanna do?”

But Izaya is busy looking around the room. There’s bookshelves in here, but they’re sparsely populated with manga. It’s cleaner than he would have expected, mostly organized with small pockets of chaos. It’s nothing like Izaya’s immaculately clean room in any way that matters. There are pencils scattered across the desk instead of in a cup. There’s a pair of pants throw across the desk chair, and some of the drawers aren’t pushed all the way in. It’s the little details. 

“I actually have to finish my homework, but if you want to—”

“I have a book, thanks.” 

“Sure. Make yourself at home, I guess.”

Izaya looks around, but really the only place to sit is Heiwajima’s bed. It’s nicer than his, that’s for sure. It almost makes it hard to keep focus on the book in front of him, stories of the Fae dancing about. It’s relaxing, calming. The sound of pencil on paper in the background, Heiwajima’s sighs as he works through his problem set.

He doesn’t even realize he’s fallen asleep until he’s woken up, Heiwajima tapping his foot. 

“What?”

“My mom wants you to spend the night. She doesn’t like the idea of you walking home this late.” He smiles wryly. “She’s already got the twins on the futon in her room. I think she’s adopting them.”

“Good, she can keep them.”

“Do you wanna borrow a set of my pajamas? They’ll be big on you, but who cares?”

“Yeah, sure. You’re not that much bigger than me, you know.” 

“You keep telling yourself that.”

“Where am I supposed to sleep?”

“What’s wrong with here?”

“How forward of you, sharing a bed—”

“If you wanna sleep on the futon, be my guest.”

“No, no, I’m on to you,” Izaya points a finger. “You just want to cop a feel in the night.” 

Shizuo scowls, “Who would want to cop a feel of your skinny ass? You can sleep on the futon.” 

“No, no. I graciously accept your offer. Besides, I’d hate to trap you alone with the demons.” 

“The only demon here is  _ you.” _

“Is this how you treat all your guests? So rude.” 

“Shut up and put on the fricking pajamas.”

“Alright,” Izaya reaches for the hem of his shirt.

“Not  _ here.”  _

“Then where? What are you so embarrassed about? You’ve already seen me naked.” Izaya changes into the set of pajamas quickly. If they are a little big, then Heiwajima is intelligent enough to not say a word. “There. Am I now decently covered?” 

“Oh my god, shut up.” Shizuo flops onto the bed, stomach down. “I want to sleep.” 

“Move your arm,” Izaya says, perching on the side of the bed. 

“No,” Shizuo says, reaching to grab Izaya by the shoulder and pull him down. “Sleep.”

“I was going to as soon as you moved your arm.” 

“You’re so picky. You realize sharing a bed means that we’ll have to touch?”

Izaya sniffs. “Not if it’s a big enough bed.” 

Shizuo pointedly looks at his admittedly fairly small bed, then back at Izaya. “You might be flea-sized, but the rest of us actually take up space.” 

“That’s just because you eat fried food for every meal. You really ought to look out more for your health, senpai.” 

“Whatever.” Heiwajima says, turning onto his side. “Go to sleep.”

And Izaya, his back pressed up against Shizuo’s, warmth seeping through his borrowed t-shirt, does.


	15. Chapter 15

It doesn’t actually make the next morning easier to sleep over at Heiwajima’s. 

Izaya wakes up crammed between the wall and a living mass of heat, something heavy and warm thrown over his waist. (It’s like sleeping with a dog.) There’s only one option for escape.

“Ow, Izaya, what the fuck—” Heiwajima complains. “Did you just crawl over me? It’s only. Fuck. 5:30.” 

“How else was I supposed to escape?” Izaya says, moving for the door. The twins have to be somewhere. Allegedly they’re in the parent’s room. How does one politely barge into another’s bedroom at five in the morning? Maybe Kumai will cooperate and be crying and he’ll be able to scoop them up and run away. He’s on the landing pondering this when he hears giggles emanating from downstairs.

He pads quietly down, feet sticking slightly to the wood as he walks. There’s the smell of coffee heavy in the air, the heady smell that only freshly brewed coffee puts out. It’s mostly dark  in the early morning except for the bright light cast outside of the kitchen. He walks over quietly, the sounds of living getting louder as he gets closer. 

“What are you doing, silly girl? Those are for eating!” 

It’s a scene out of a movie, or a TV show, or even a commercial. (It feels fake. Not real. Nobody  _ really  _ lives like this.) The kitchen is brightly lit and clean and the smell of coffee is strongest here. Kumai are sitting on their own chairs, happily digging into bowls of colorful cereal in front of them. There are stray bits of cereal littering the floor. Kururi has a few pieces in her hair. Heiwajima’s mother stands at the counter in a robe, leaning against it cradling a cup of coffee while watching the twins play with a faint smile curving her mouth.

Izaya is suddenly conscious of his ruffled hair, his borrowed clothes. How his face isn’t in any of the pictures on the walls. (Not that it is at home, either.) He doesn’t belong here. It’s far too intimate of a scene. He’s never even seen his  _ own _ mother look so sleep-ruffled and domestic. Even in the early morning, Kikyo favors form-fitting dresses and pantsuits, coming down for breakfast like she’s about to hit the runway. Or the boardroom. Wherever she would wield the most power.

Heiwajima’s mother looks over and smiles when she sees Izaya. “Good morning. Did you sleep well? I know Shizuo can be a bit of an octopus when he’s asleep, but it looks like you fared okay.” (Now  _ that’s  _ an understatement. He felt like he was being  _ mauled _ .)

There’s the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs behind him. Heiwajima squeezes past him into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes. 

“You’re up early, Shizuo,” Heiwajima’s mother says with some measure of surprise. 

Heiwajima scowls and looks darkly at Izaya under his fringe. Izaya has to struggle to bite back a smile. It really was more intimidating when he had dark hair to brood under. Somehow the bright yellow just doesn’t add to the dark look he’s aiming for. 

“I would have slept longer,” Heiwajima says, reaching up for a box of cereal. “But  _ somebody  _ put their  _ knee  _ in my  _ kidney.” _

_ ( _ Revenge! _ ) _

_ “ _ Oh please,” Izaya says, coming into the kitchen to accept a cup of coffee that Heiwajima’s mother holds out. “I’ve seen you walk off being hit with a truck. You shouldn’t have even felt that.” 

He thinks belatedly that maybe he shouldn’t have said that in front of Heiwajima’s mother, but she just laughs. “Was the truck okay?” 

“I wasn’t  _ expecting  _ it,” Heiwajima whines, pouring himself a bowl of cereal and sitting with the twins. “What’d you have to do that for anyway?”

_ (Revenge!) _

“Well, I wouldn’t have had to if someone didn’t try to put me in a chokehold overnight.” 

“I didn’t  _ mean _ to. It just happens. You don’t have to be so mean.” 

“Izaya-kun, can I get you something to eat?” Heiwajima’s mother says. “We have a whole bunch of cereal. Bread for toast. We have eggs, if you’re interested.” 

“No, thank you,” Izaya says, dredging up a sweet smile from somewhere in his coffee cup. “I’m not much for breakfast.” 

“I see,” she says.

“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” her son says, looking up from trying to shovel as much food as humanly possible into his mouth. “No wonder you’re such a twig.” 

“Why, because you’re so bulky and buff?” 

“Oh my god—”

“ _ Language. _ ”

“Sorry, Mom. But you’ve gotta eat  _ something.”  _ Now Heiwajima’s standing up from the table and herding Izaya into the last empty seat. “I’ll make you toast.” 

“I don’t  _ want _ toast.” 

“Well that’s just  _ too bad.”  _ Shizuo’s bustling around the kitchen, banging cabinets open and closed and generally making a nuisance of himself while making toast as angrily as Izaya’s ever seen. Heiwajima’s mom is unsuccessfully trying to hide a smirk behind her coffee, watching with amusement in her eyes.

“Here,” Heiwajima says, slamming a plate of dry toast and a jar of strawberry jam down in front of Izaya before dropping himself back into his chair and eating his cereal. 

“Thanks, senpai,” Izaya says, picking up a piece of toast and taking a bite. 

“You’re supposed to put jam on it.”

“I don’t  _ like  _ jam.”

Heiwajima scowls. “Why not?” 

“It’s sweet. I don’t like sweet things.” 

“That explains your personality.” 

“You’re mean in the morning,” Izaya complains, eating his toast.

“And you’re mean all day.” 

Heiwajima’s mom laughs as she scoops up the twins and drifts out of the kitchen.

 

“You can’t wear those, they’re dirty,” Heiwajima says as Izaya goes to pull his shirt from yesterday on over his shower-wet hair.

“I never knew you were such a stickler for hygiene. What do you suggest I wear then? Should I go naked? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Luckily for you,” Heiwajima says, opening his closet, “our school has uniforms. Wow. It’s like they make us wear the same thing.” Heiwajima tosses him a pair of pants and a jacket. The pants are a little too long, and it’s a good thing that he usually wears a belt, because there’s no way those pants would stay put on his hips.

“I like to wear a shirt underneath.”

“And you think I don’t own any shirts?” 

Izaya frowns. What is this, some sort of weird possession ritual? “I’m not borrowing any underwear.” 

“Fair. Got a color preference?”

“Something dark. And long sleeved.”

“Er. Well.” Heiwajima grabs a shirt and holds it up for inspection.

“It has a snowflake on it,” Izaya says, frowning. 

“Yes.”

“It has  _ glitte _ r on it.”

“My mom bought it.” 

“Why don’t you own any other long sleeve shirts?”

“I don’t like them.” 

“What, do you not feel cold?”

Heiwajima shrugs with one shoulder. “Not usually.”

If math class was just a tad bit warmer, this wouldn’t be an issue. He wouldn’t have to seriously consider going out in public with a large, glittering snowflake on his chest. 

“You don’t have  _ any  _ other long-sleeved shirts? Not a single one?” 

“Nope.” If it was  _ anyone  _ else, Izaya would be suspicious. But Heiwajima has all the capacity of a drunk goldfish for sly and cunning. “No, wait. I might have some old clothes that might fit you!”

Heiwajima dives into his closet, disappearing behind the hanging clothes with a swish. There’s an almighty rumbling and then a cardboard box comes flying out, landing with a dull thud in front of Izaya. 

“There’s probably something in there,” Heiwajima says, brushing himself off.

Izaya peels the top open delicately, peering in. There are shirts upon shirts stacked neatly in the box, colors as varied as the rainbow. The first one Izaya pulls out of the box  _ is  _ long sleeved. Or was. One sleeve dangles by mere threads to the rest of the shirt, holding on by sheer tenacity. The next shirt has a large tear that essentially turns it into a belly shirt.

“I could wear this, get my bellybutton pierced,” Izaya says, holding it up. “What do you think?”

“You don’t have the beach-ready body you think you do.” 

“Are you body-shaming me? That’s not something people in successful marriages do,” Izaya says, rummaging for another shirt.

“Isn’t the whole point of a long-sleeved shirt to not be cold? Wouldn’t it be dumb to wear a shirt with a huge hole in it? How about this one?” Heiwajima holds out a shirt that seems to be mostly intact, a nice green color with no offensive glitter.

“That’ll do,” Izaya says, tugging it over his head. It fits rather nicely, actually. And it’s soft. Maybe he’ll adopt it, give it a better home. “Why do you even have your old, ripped clothing anyway?”

Heiwajima sighs, and it’s deep and gusty. “My mom’s a bit of a hoarder. She’s probably dressing your sisters in the baby clothes she bought Kasuka back when everyone thought he was gonna be a girl.” 

“Isn’t Kasuka ten?”

Heiwajima looks at him. “Hoarder.” 

“Got it.” Izaya repacks the discarded shirts back into the box, trying to get them as neat as possible.

 

Izaya spends the next five minutes trying to shove his dirty clothes into his backpack while Heiwajima grabs random pieces of homework and shoves them into his backpack with no regard for ‘neatness’ or ‘organization’ or ‘making sure that one piece of paper survives.’ 

Like Heiwajima predicted, Izaya finds the twins downstairs, freshly bathed, and wearing clothes he’s never seen before. 

“Ah,” he says. “Thanks for taking care of them.” 

“Oh, it’s no bother,” Heiwajima’s mother says, and Izaya gets the impression that she actually means it. How scary. “Feel free to keep the clothes, I’m just glad they’re getting some use.” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” Izaya says, grabbing each twin by one hand. “They’re lovely. Thank you for your hospitality.”

(If he feels so wildly uncomfortable around her for reasons he can’t explain, then that’s no one’s business but his.)

“Oh, you’re always welcome, Izaya-kun. Don’t be a stranger.”

 

“Why do we have to leave so  _ early?”  _ Heiwajima whines as soon as the door closes behind him.

“I have to take the twins to the daycare center,” Izaya says. “You don’t have to come at all.”

“No, I’m coming, I’m coming,” Heiwajima grumbles as he stumbles his way into the day, scooping up the twins, one in each arm.

“Shizu-nii!” one of them cries, throwing her little arms around his neck. Is that Mairu? The little traitor. See if he ever feeds her again.

“I’m not—”

“Shizu-nii!” she insists. Heiwajima looks at him helplessly. 

“Looks like that one’s been adopted. Be sure to water her everyday and make sure she gets enough sunlight.”

“You’re a riot. What bus to we have to take?”

“Well,” Izaya says, pretending to think. “First we have to take a train, because the nursery is actually quite far from here. Then we have to change trains to actually get to school. No bus, I’m afraid. Unless you really want to, I’m sure we could take a short detour.” 

“Trains are expensive.”

“If you want to run all the way to the nursery center, be my guest.” 

Heiwajima looks thoughtful, jiggling the twins in his arms as if to test the weight. 

“Are you really going to run to the nursery center to save on train fare?” 

“I might.”

It’s a nice morning. Perfect for a run across Tokyo, if one was so inclined. It’s the kind of weather that promises warmer days to come, the kind that Izaya might finally be able to shed a few layers. Probably not, since he burns like an egg on a nuclear reactor in the sun. 

It’s relatively smooth sailing to the nursery center with Heiwajima to hold the twins above the legs of the sea of humanity rushing around Tokyo in their morning commute. The only hitch is when they actually get to the nursery. 

“Shizu-nii,  _ no!”  _ Mairu absolutely refuses to let go of Heiwajima, clinging to his neck with all the strength in her little arms. Heiwajima looks at Izaya pleadingly while the worker looks on and laughs. 

“I didn’t know there was another brother!” she’s saying. “I only ever really see one of you.”

“Can you get her off?” Heiwajima says, looking helpless.

“Can’t you? I feel that it should definitely be within your ability to remove one toddler.” 

“I don’t want to hurt her.” Heiwajima sounds desperate now.

“Here,” Izaya reaches up, dancing his fingertips along Mairu’s ribs right under her armpits. She squeals, pressing her arms flat against her sides. “See? Easy.” 

“Of course it’s easy if you know what to do.” 

“Like your homework.” 

“Shut up, it’s hard.”

“It’s only geometry,” Izaya says as they walk out the door of the center. “It’s only shapes and sheer memorization, how hard could it be?”

“Shows what you know,” Shizuo, says as they step onto the train. There’s a million and one other people there, the press of humanity no less than any other day. Coupled with the consistent announcements about train arrivals and departures and incidents on platform whatever, it’s hard to carry on a conversation. But Heiwajima’s hatred of triangles powers through, allowing him to tell Izaya all about how sheer evil triangles are and how, most insidiously of all, they can also be found in  _ circles,  _ damn them. 

“I would have thought triangles would be easy for you,” Izaya says somewhere in the middle of an explanation of how the abbreviation of sine to sin is particularly accurate because they are proof of man’s sin and hubris in thinking he can conquer the known world. “Since triangles can be used to calculate force vectors.” 

Heiwajima opens his mouth, closes it. “What do you mean, a triangle?”

“Well, take for example the light fixture above your kitchen table,” Izaya says as they step off the train. “It hangs from the ceiling on a single wire and gravity pulls it down—”

Heiwajima stops walking. “ _ Gravity.  _ They were being pulled down by  _ gravity.”  _

“Well, yes, of course. Everything is pulled down by gravity. Even you, senpai, are not immune.” 

“How could I forget about  _ gravity,”  _ Heiwajima moans as they walk through the gates. 

“Maybe because you defy its basic laws just about every day?”

“Who’s breaking laws?” There’s Tanaka, leaning against the side of the gates, looking as casual as he pleases. “Shizuo? Breaking laws? I can’t imagine it.”

“Tom-san!” Heiwajima runs over to Tanaka, wrapping him in a bone-crushing hug that has Tanaka’s feet dangling off the ground.

“It’s nice to see you, too,” Tanaka manages to get out. “Could you maybe loosen up so I can breathe?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Heiwajima drops Tanaka back to his feet. “It’s good to see you back!”

Heiwajima looks sunny and cheerful with his hair yellow like the sun. He looks like an idol. 

“It’s good to see you, too,” Tanaka says. “What’d you do with your hair?”

Heiwajima reaches up to it. “I dyed it. Thought I’d give your idea a chance, see if it boosts my reputation, or whatever.”

“It suits you,” Tanaka says, “makes you look less brooding.”

Izaya can feel the toast Heiwajima made him eat congealing in his stomach, becoming a hard lump of bread he can feel rolling around. 

“That’s what I told him,” Izaya says, needing to force the words out. Huh. His throat feels tight. Is it allergies? He hasn’t been allergic to anything before, but Kikyo used to turn into a snotty mess around this time of year, something no amount of makeup or expensive perfume could cover. Maybe it’s genetic. 

“Oh, Izaya-kun, it’s good to see you, too,” Tanaka says. “I was gonna ask Shizuo if he was free to come to the arcade today, since it’s my first day of freedom. You can come too, if you want?”

Izaya puts on Friendly Smile #3, the one that’s not too broad and doesn’t look too flirty and conveys just the right amount of gratitude. It’s not particularly broad and there’s no reason for his jaw to hurt the way it does. 

“Oh, I don’t know, I’m kinda busy—”

“We’ll be there,” Heiwajima cuts across Izaya like he hadn’t even started to answer. “Sounds like fun, which one?”

(Wow, how lucky he is to have Heiwajima there to make plans for him!)

“Well, we can’t go to the one near the Shopping District, since you have a life ban there,” Tanaka says, with just a tad of a dry tone, “how about the one near Sunshine 60? I don’t think you’ve wrecked anything there in recent memory.”

“Hey, they’ve got a McDonalds nearby. Sounds good to me.” 

Fatass.

“You  _ would  _ only know Tokyo by the location of McDonald’s,” Tanaka says fondly. The bell signaling the start of classes rings loud and shrill in the morning air, leaving Heiwajima and Tanaka to move off like a single being in the direction of the building, and Izaya left to trail behind. 

  
  


Class is harder than usual to get through. He’s not the only one that feels it. It’s the middle part of the semester where both breaks are really too far away and the absolute mind-numbing routine kicks in. It’s the roughest part of the semester, where more friendships will strain than any other time, usually snapping to the breaking point. There’s at least three that he saw walking in, Yuki not even looking at Akira as they passed by, the perfect way to disguise the flash of disgust in her eyes. Or advertise it. Did Akira do something or is Yuki just that disgusted? Ah, he’s lost touch, become sloppy. 

The bell rings for lunch and he follows the crowd to the cafeteria, listening as friends from different classes drift together to form their loose walking groups. It’s all mostly the same, he hasn’t been that out of touch. He’s only been in the school cafeteria once before, and only long enough to get an impression of linoleum tile and the smell of bleach. He’s never anticipated actually buying food there, but it gives him a pretense to stand and listen as conversations flow through one ear and out the next.

It’s nothing terribly interesting. The main topic of interest seems to be Heiwajima’s new dye job. Doesn’t he look  _ just  _ like an idol now? Terribly exciting, isn’t it? 

It’s once he has his food, balancing the tray in his hands, that he’s faced with a dilemma. Sitting at cafeteria tables is a delicate exercise, the balance of power displayed for all to see. 

See, over there is Akira. She’s not sitting with Yuki and Co., like she used to. She’s sitting with others, but they don’t seem to care much that she’s there. They don’t seem to be interacting much at all. Someone’s on the outs. 

He’s about to sit over where the nerds are, he’s sure they’d be thrilled to have him, when there’s a solid and sturdy grip around his forearm.

“There you are,” Heiwajima says, frowning at him. Izaya’s pretty certain that at least three girls one table over start to fan themselves. “Oh, you got food. Maybe you’ll stop being such a twig now.” 

Heiwajima starts pulling on his arm with what he probably considers light pressure, but it makes Izaya stumble and his soup slosh dangerously at the sides of the bowl. Izaya waits until they’ve cleared the cafeteria doors to say: “You know, senpai, I think we talked about letting me make choices for myself.” 

Heiwajima’s brow crinkles and the hand around Izaya’s arm flexes. “What do you mean?” 

“What if I  _ don’t  _ want to eat lunch with you today? What if I don’t want to go to the arcade?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“There’s a hundred reason. Maybe I have plans _.”  _ Izaya sighs. “But did you ask? No. Really, how many times do I have to explain this?” 

“Well, if you don’t want to come, then  _ don’t,”  _ Heiwajima says, finally dropping his hand from around Izaya’s arm, just in time for them to hit the stairs, Heiwajima starting the climb up.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Heiwajima whirls around. “ _ What _ ?”

Izaya gives him his sweetest smile. “Oh, nothing, senpai. Almost spilled my soup.” 

Heiwajima doesn’t look satisfied, but continues up the stairs anyway.

(What an idiot.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks, as always, to max!  
> also, i lied once, to puppez4eva. i said this was gonna be roughly 70k. that's a lie. it's going to be longer.


	16. Chapter 16

There isn't a McDonald’s near the Sunshine 60 arcade anymore. 

“Wasn't this--?”

Tanaka puts a reassuring hand on Shizuo’s shoulder. “It was.”

Instead of the church of the deep fried, it's some sort of health food store, advertising a tofu  _ experience _ . 

Heiwajima looks at it with a solemn sort of acceptance, like the world has wronged him in a deep and meaningful way, but he expected nothing less.

“I think it's a sign,” Izaya says. “The universe is  _ actively _ trying to tell you to eat less junk food, senpai. I think you should listen.”

“I'm not  _ fat. _ ”

“Not yet. Not if you,” Izaya takes a moment to read the advertisements, “embark on a journey of tofu discovery. Look, they have strawberry flavor. That sounds interesting.”

Heiwajima looks unconvinced. “I'll live,” he decides.

“You sure you won't starve? It's been an entire three hours.”

“Shut up.”

The arcade off Sunshine 60 smells oddly of Cheetos wherever you go in the building, but it’s strongest in the bathrooms and near the games with the huge anime tiddies. There’s probably a mystery to be solved there, but not one that Izaya wants to touch with a ninety foot pole. 

“Remember, Shizuo, be gentle,” Tanaka says. “The joysticks break easily.” 

“I  _ know _ .”

“There are at least three arcades that say differently. And no rhythm games. Or claw machines. Or—”

“Why come if you can’t play any of the games without breaking them?” Izaya says. 

Tanaka smirks. “Well. That’s not all of the games.”

“What on earth could that possibly leave—oh.” Those games. 

“He’s really good at it, too,” Tanaka says, as if that makes any difference. 

“I’m right here,” Heiwajima says, irritably. 

“It’s a dancing game,  _ everybody’s _ good at those.” That's not true. Izaya’s seen the best interpretation of a train wreck through dance on those pads. 

“Not like Shizuo is.”

“Oh, Shizuo-senpai, working to become an idol?” Izaya snaps his fingers in realization. “The hair. The dancing. It all makes sense now!”

“Shut up.”

“It's okay,” Izaya says, slinging an arm around Heiwajima's shoulders, “we all have dreams.” 

Heiwajima's response is to sling his arm around Izaya’s waist and bodily drag him over to the dance pad. This may not have gone like he imagined.

“Let’s see how you do, then. Since  _ everybody’s  _ good at them.” 

“Oh, no thanks. I’m rather attached to my dignity. It’s gotten me far in life.”

Shizuo raises an eyebrow. “Sounds like you’re no good.”

“I’m not falling for that. That’s not even a cheap blow, that’s just shitty manipulation.” 

“Why don’t you go first, Shizuo?” Tom says, coming up behind them. “Show us how it’s done.”

That’s even shittier manipulation. How do these people go through life like this? But Shizuo nods with all seriousness and hops up on the dance pad, feeding his tokens in.

Shizuo only looks over his shoulder once, when selecting his difficulty, as he meets Izaya’s eyes as he selects ‘challenging.’ 

Ooh, scary. Threatening. Izaya’s trembling in his shoes, really. 

You can’t see it, but he’s wetting himself on the inside.

Really. 

But then Shizuo  _ starts. _

It’s obvious he’s familiar with the mechanics, he’s not stumbling when he has to slap the ground, not tangling up in his own feet when he has to make a rapid change. He’s fast, his movements sure. His upper body isn’t flailing around like some people’s do either, subject to the demands of the lower. 

He’s not missing a beat, landing each step with precision. 

But anyone could do that, really.

Shizuo finishes, turning to look over his shoulder at Izaya, a smirk of victory clear on his face.

Izaya raises a single eyebrow, trying to convey as much disdain as he possibly can in one movement. 

“How can I be impressed when I have nothing to compare it to?”

Tanaka rolls his eyes. “You could compare it to the scoreboard.” 

But Shizuo’s raising an eyebrow back, so Izaya’s stepping up onto the other dance pad and putting in his tokens. 

There’s what could be a gusty sigh behind him, but Tanaka is probably not that much of drama queen, right? 

Shizuo’s stomping over back down to easy, so Izaya stomps his up to medium. Shizuo matches him. 

There’s another sigh. 

Then, they start. 

Izaya’s never done this before, but it doesn’t seem to actually matter. It’s simple enough, hit the arrows at the right time and don’t get twisted up in your own two feet. 

Easy. 

It’s really laughably simple, not challenging in the slightest. 

It’s because it’s his first time that Heiwajima’s score is slightly higher than his. That’s it. It’s a slim,  _ slim  _ margin, there’s no real reason for the bastard to be smirking like that. 

Fuck that.

“Rematch?” Izaya tries to say as casually as he can. Shizuo’s not buying it, judging by the smirk on his face and the challenge in his stance. 

There’s another gusty sigh behind them. Tanaka better watch it if he doesn’t want to hyperventilate and die. 

The second time is harder than the first, mostly because Izaya’s selected a higher level in a bid to get more points, but also because the tempo of the music changes with no warning. It’s not a song Izaya’s particularly familiar with, it could be a million and one of those crappy pop songs from elementary school, the kind that intimated at sex with all the fun words bleeped out. The kind that the ‘cool’ kids had the uncensored version of on their iPods and tittered the censored words at their friends.

If he’s breathing a bit harder at the end, well, it’s not that noticeable. 

But his score is higher than Heiwajima’s and that’s all that matters.

Now it’s Heiwajima’s turn to scowl and and say: “Rematch?”

“I suppose.” 

There’s no heavy, over-done sigh this time. Izaya twists to see if Tanaka really has hyperventilated, because that would be amusing to put on a headstone. “Rolled eyes too hard and died,” but he hasn’t. He’s leaning against one of the machines, talking to a small crowd next to him. And…is that money changing hands?

Well.

Good for Tanaka, Izaya never knew he had it in him. 

Izaya lets Shizuo choose the song in favor of catching Tanaka’s eye, mouthing  _ I want twenty percent. _

Tanaka lifts an incredulous eyebrow. 

_ Ten.  _

_ Eighteen.  _

_ Fifteen.  _

_ Fine.  _

Izaya turns back just in time for the song to start, and he’s moving. Heiwajima’s selected something fast, and it’s all Izaya can do to keep up. He’s tempted to look over and see what that mysterious  _ thump  _ over to his left was, if it’s really Heiwajima tripping over his own two feet, but that would mean sacrificing his streak, and he’s really not willing to do that. 

The game ends in a tie. 

Izaya fights to keep the scowl off his face, but by Heiwajima’s smirk, he’s failed. 

“Rematch?” they say at the same time. 

It’s sometime after the third song that Izaya notices the crowd and the phones that they brought. He’s not sure it’s flattering. He’s breathing a bit harder than he would like, can feel sweat starting to gather at the back of his neck and under his arms. Heiwajima looks as unruffled as always, the only concession he’s made to the warmer air in the arcade rolling up his sleeves. 

But Heiwajima’s already feeding tokens in and hell if Izaya is going to forfeit for just a little sweat. 

They’d have to cut off his legs. Scratch that, he’s pretty sure he could do just fine with only his arms, slapping at the ground like a chimp. Anything to wipe that damn grin off Shizuo’s face. 

Sometime around round twelve, Izaya can feel himself start to slow. His legs aren’t responding quite as quickly as they used to, feel a bit heavier than they did at the beginning. He can feel the sweat beading on the back of his neck, can feel the wetness of the fabric under his arms.

It’s absolutely disgusting. 

Heiwajima doesn’t look like he’s sweating at all, looks just as fresh as he did when they walked in. He’s clearly not human. Must be an escaped genetic experiment, it would explain  _ so _ much. But Heiwajima is the slightest bit sloppier too, not that that’s saying much when he started out looking like an octopus out of water. 

It’s after the twenty-first song that Izaya pulls through, putting himself one victory over Heiwajima, and they have to stop.

Because they’ve run out of tokens, of course.

“What?” Heiwajima says, furrowing his eyebrows. He’s maybe a little flushed, the bastard. “Usually I can play much longer than that.”

“Well, there are two of us, costs twice as much,” Izaya says, putting a hand in his pocket to ensure there aren’t any damning jingles. 

“Hm,” is all Shizuo says. 

“You’re just mad because I won,” Izaya says, hopping the short distance from the pad to the floor. 

“What?” Shizuo says, trailing after him. “You did  _ not.” _

_ “ _ I won the most amount of matches. Therefore, I won.”

“You did  _ not.  _ We  _ tied.” _

“We had an odd number of matches, we can’t have tied.”

“Yeah, but we tied in some of the matches.”

“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty,” Tanaka says, spreading his arms magnanimously. 

“Well?” Izaya says, crossing his arms.

“Well what?”

“Who won? You were keeping track, right?” 

Tanaka throws an arm over each of their shoulders, ignoring both of them when they immediately try to shrug him off. 

“We won what was really important here,” Tanaka takes a dramatic pause. “Friendship.”

“You’re kidding,” Izaya says. There can’t be anyone who actually falls for that twaddle. 

“That’s true,” Shizuo says at the same moment. 

Izaya needs to reconsider his life choices. 

“See? You two spent an hour  _ bonding, _ ” Tanaka continues, and Shizuo’s nodding along slowly. “What could be worth more than that?” 

Apparently, Shizuo’s only good at spotting bullshit when it’s Izaya’s. What kind of cosmic prank is this?

“I’m glad you said that, Tom-san,” Shizuo says, clapping a hand on Tanaka’s shoulder. “Then you won’t mind handing over your earnings from the little gambling ring you had going?” 

“Oh, that,” Tanaka says. “Well, I—”

“You know. Since there’s nothing worth more than the time we spend together?”

Is this what being a proud parent feels like? Wow, what a high. No wonder they pin crap to the fridge, this is amazing. 

“Izaya-kun only wanted a fifteen-percent cut,” Tanaka says, apparently trying to drag Izaya down with him.

Not Today Satan.

“How would I have told you that? I was up on the pad with Shizuo,” Izaya says in his best neutral voice. It’s technically not a lie.

Shizuo squeezes his shoulder, and Tanaka grumbles and reaches into his pocket, pulling out a far larger wad of bills than Izaya would have expected. 

“You know, people were taking videos. You might get scouted,” Tanaka’s saying, handing the wad over to Shizuo, who rapidly flips through the stack. “You should be  _ thanking  _ me.” 

“I don’t want to be an idol,” Shizuo says absently, busy separating three smaller stacks. One’s smaller than the others. That one he hands to Tanaka. The other two are roughly the same size, and one he hands to Izaya and he pockets the other. 

“Twenty percent? You’re a miser,” Tanaka complains, but he’s smiling. 

“Stop trying to profit off me,  _ Jesus _ . I'm not a side show.”

“Of course not,” Tanaka agrees. “It's just—”

“Izaya,” Shizuo cuts Tanaka off. “What do you usually do?”

Shizuo just looks kind of manic, like he's willing Izaya to play along. Tanaka just looks resigned. 

“I'm pretty decent at rhythm games,” Izaya says, eyes flicking between the two. 

“Great. Come show me.” And then Izaya’s being dragged by a wrist over to another bank of blinking games, these ones with drum like contraptions on the front.

“I don’t have any tokens,” Izaya says lamely, because tripping up on your own lies is pathetic and for idiots.

“I can hear them clanking in your pockets,” Shizuo says, with a raised eyebrow and a twist of his lips.

There’s no actual way he can hear that. It’s not deafening in the arcade, but it’s not quiet either, and Izaya’s no longer jumping around like an idiot on a raised platform.

But pushing it would be more effort than it’s worth. 

Rhythm games are easy, only really requiring fast reflexes and a decent sense of timing. It’s not much different than the dance game he was playing earlier, just a bit less active. 

“You’re good at this,” Shizuo says, leaning against the side of the machine. 

“Sure,” Izaya says. “What do you usually do, when you’re not dancing your heart out?” 

“I used to play the games like Street Fighter and that.”

“Button mashers. Why am I not surprised.”

“They take  _ skill, _ ” Shizuo protests immediately. “You can’t just press one button and hope to win.”

“That’s  _ exactly  _ what you do.”

“It is  _ not.” _

_ “ _ Whatever you say, senpai.” 

“No, no. I’ll show you.” And then Izaya is being manhandled away from his future high score by his collar to the “vintage” section of the arcade.

It smells like piss and stale dreams. 

“Sorry, what? What do stale dreams smell like?”

“Like this section of the arcade, obviously,” Izaya sniffs, trying to fight down his blush. He’s pretty sure he didn’t actually say that out loud.

Oops. Happens when you’re the only intelligent one around for hours on end. 

Shizuo lines his hand up on the buttons oddly, using his pinky instead of his pointer, holding the stick carefully.

Then he proceeds to do nothing but mash one button for the next forty-five seconds. But his shoulders are climbing ever higher towards his ears, and his jaw is clenching and unclenching in a way that can’t be healthy. 

“See? It’s totally a strategy based game.” 

“Uh-huh.”

“It is!”

“Sure, senpai. As long as your strategy is to hit the button as many times as is physically possible.”

“It’s not—” Shizuo slams his fist down on the console, making the plastic crack under his fist and flake off.

So  _ that’s  _ why they don’t let him play anything else.

Izaya looks at his wrist. “Oh, would you look at the time?” He grabs Shizuo’s sleeve, double timing it to the nearest exit, “time to go get the twins!” 

“But what about—”

“You know how fussy they get!”

“But I—”

“Keep moving. You did nothing and they can’t prove it.” 

 

It’s because they’re busy running like they have nothing to hide that Izaya forgets, truly. Not planned at all. They’re at the subway station before Shizuo’s cell phone starts to ring.

“Oh no,” Shizuo says, looking down at his phone.

“What? Is it your mom?”

“We forgot Tom!” Shizuo flips his phone open, holding it to his ear and starting off on the most profuse string of apologies Izaya’s heard this side of a divorce. 

He’s attracting attention, really.

“Shizuo, you need to stop,” Izaya tries, kicking him in the ankle gently. 

Shizuo ignores him, still trying to win his way back into Tanaka’s heart. But now louder.

So Izaya kicks him a little harder. 

“I’d  _ give my life  _ to make up for this  _ gangrenous—” _

“Do you mean egregious?” 

“That’s what I  _ said _ . Oh no, not you. Yeah, Izaya needs to get his sisters from daycare. I’m really very sorry about this.”

He’s still apologizing as the train rolls up.

On the train.

To the door of the daycare.

“How’d you even get signal on the train? What plan are you on?”

“Oh,” Shizuo pulls his phone away from his ear. The screen is dark. “I don’t.”

“You  _ bastard.” _

There’s a gasp from the daycare lady that has Izaya putting on his best ‘I’m really very sweet and kind’ grin while Shizuo does a crappy job of not snickering in the corner.

Kumai are strangely docile the entire way home.

It’s not because Shizuo is there, nope.

Mairu only tries to kidnap one pet. 

Kururi only tries to fall down one storm drain. 

It’s easier to coral them with two there instead of just one.

They hit the front door, and Shizuo is kind enough to invite himself in. 

“Do you have food? I’m starving,” Shizuo says, already rummaging around in Izaya’s fridge. 

“No, in this house, we only subsist on sunshine and happiness.” 

“No wonder you’re so thin.” Shizuo closes the fridge with a decided slam. “There’s still no food in here.” 

“Of course not. When would I have time to go grocery shopping since you’ve last been here?”

“Oh,” Shizuo’s rubbing the back of his head. “I guess that’s true.”

“But, lucky for you, we  _ do  _ have cup noodles.”

There’s a faint cry of “ _ nooo”  _ from the living room.

“The twins love them, really.” 

“Izu-nii,  _ no. _ ”

The twins come rushing in, tumbling over and bumbling into things in their haste to cling to Izaya’s pant leg.

“Favorite food.”

“No cup nood.”

“Really now?” Shizuo says, a smile on his lips. 

“Oh, yes,” Izaya nods solemnly, heading over to the pantry to reveal his cup noodle collection. It’s impressive. Almost every flavor Nissan has ever released, bought it bulk. Some piles stack nearly to the ceiling, proud towers of salt and preservatives. Izaya knows that they will live longer than he ever has, if left untouched.

A monument to humanity’s progress.

“I’m good, thanks,” Shizuo decides.

“What, not gonna stay for dinner?”

“I like my kidneys.”

“That’s fair.”

 

“You’ve got to,” he tells Mairu, kneeling down on the floor in front of her. He’s not sure why he’s trying to bargain or explain to her. It’s not like it’s gonna end any differently. 

“No,” she says, gripping on harder. Theoretically, he should be able to pull a toddler off a chair. Theoretically, he’s stronger. 

Theoretically, he’s not running late.

At least Mairu is dressed.

Kururi is running around somewhere behind him, dizzy with freedom of inattention, naked. 

Mostly naked.

She _ is  _ wearing the cheerios Izaya foolishly tried to feed her. 

He could bring her like that. Free the nipple, and all. 

No, wait, maybe she’s too young. 

Whatever. He herds Kururi into clothes, each article of clothing a struggle. He snags Mairu before he leaves, tossing her over his shoulder, where she screeches into his ear and beats his chest and back with tiny fists and feet. 

He uses his foot to jiggle the doorknob open, not willing to let a single one of them a moment of freedom. 

The door swings open to someone standing on the threshold, a single fist raised in preparation of knocking, a stupefied expression on their face.

It takes Izaya a minute to place the blond thug on his doorstep as Shizuo. He was personally involved in dying his hair, but the difference really is jarring.

“What are you doing here?” Izaya snaps, trying to close the door with his hip before Shizuo takes pity on him and closes it himself. 

“I thought I’d walk you to school,” Shizuo says as he trails behind Izaya down the front walk.

“Why? What about Tanaka-senpai?” Mairu’s slowly slipping down his back. If she’s not careful, she’ll face plant into the sidewalk at this rate. But hey, an unconscious child in an easy child to carry.

Shizuo removes the problem all together by simply plucking Mairu out of Izaya’s grip, settling her on his hip, where she goes from screaming to sniffing pathetically into his shirt.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I dunno, she woke up like that,” Izaya says, the headache that had been threatening behind his eyes starting to spread to his temples. 

Shizuo starts to coo at Mairu, “It’s okay, princess,” he’s saying in soft, soothing tones. “You’re only going to school.”

Mairu quiets entirely by the time they get to the bus stop, peacefully clinging to Shizuo. 

“I think she just wanted some attention,” Shizuo says, stroking her hair. “Kasuka was like that, sometimes.”

Izaya can’t see Kasuka crying out for literally anything, but what does he know?

“That’s great,” Izaya says. “Why are you here?”

“To walk you to school. I told you.” 

“Didn’t you used to walk Tanaka-san?”

Shizuo shrugs. “This seemed more important.” 

Izaya feels as his chest tightens, as his face tries to pull itself in. He shouldn’t be irritated. He shouldn’t want to snap at Shizuo. This is what he wanted, after all. He wanted help with the twins. They’re a handful. They’ve never really liked him, it’s fine. 

Mairu is a  _ traitor.  _ But it’s fine. 

It certainly makes the bus ride easier, he thinks. He and Shizuo can sit on two seats, a twin each, instead of cramming three people on one. 

“Izu-nii,” Kururi says, on Izaya’s lap.

“Hm?”

“I like color,” she says seriously, patting her stomach. 

“What color do you like?”

Kururi scowls at him, patting her stomach a bit more fiercely. “Color.” 

Izaya’s eye is suddenly drawn to the color of her shirt. It’s one of the bright blue ones he bought a few days ago, a teal color that manages to be both calming and cheerful at the same time. 

“Good choice,” Shizuo says approvingly. Kururi beams at him.

“I like color,” Mairu says from Shizuo’s lap, patting his arm to get his attention.

“Oh yeah?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you like the same color are your sister?” Shizuo asks her. Mairu thinks about it, putting her hand on her head. 

“No.”

“No? Then what color do you like?”

Mairu points at Izaya’s shirt. “That.”

“Red? You like red?”

“Rea.”

“Red.

“Ret.”

“Close enough. Hey, Izaya, how come your sisters don’t talk much?”

Izaya shrugs, “I suppose they don’t have much to say.” 

“Kasuka used to talk a lot when he was little,” Shizuo says, clapping Mairu’s hands together. “Just constant streams of babble.”

Izaya tries to picture Kasuka talking for longer than a minute, let alone just babbling. All he gets for his trouble is a mental image of a dead-faced baby, staring into his soul. Like something straight out of  _ The Shining. _

But what does he know?

“Did he, now?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t until he got older that he became quiet. But he used to talk tons. It drove Mom crazy, couldn’t get him to shut up.” 

“Sounds more like you,” Izaya says easily, swinging out of his seat. 

“I don’t talk a lot!”

“You talk all the time, senpai. A real windbag, can’t get a moment of peace when you’re around.” 

“That’s just  _ not _ true.”

Kumai go easily into the daycare, minimal fuss and riot. 

“Did you know,” Shizuo starts, which always bodes well.

“Probably.”

“That baby diapers have a power that absorbs most of the liquid?”

“Yes.”

Shizuo looks stunned. “But I only learned that in Chemistry yesterday.” 

“Some of us seek knowledge and don’t wait for it to fall into our laps,” Izaya says, giving Shizuo a smirk. “It’s called  _ initiative.”  _

“It’s called  _ being an ass. _ ”

“That doesn’t even  _ make sense.” _

Shizuo jostles Izaya’s shoulder with his own in what can’t be construed as anything other than attempted murder, sending him almost reeling into the street. 

“It does  _ so.” _

“Oh no, I’m not devolving to that. I will have intelligent conversation or none at all.”

“Fine,” Shizuo says, falling silent for a moment. Then, with a gleam in his eye: “ _ How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren’t real?” _

“I hate you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to steph, for beta-ing.


End file.
